[D4] Itemisation suggestion guidelines

General Discussion
1

Hello everyone, a bit while ago mentioned in another thread mentioned a few ideas regarding itemisation along with the fact that it’s greater importance of having that nailed before doing further things… And the importance of that I think lies in the fact that quite a few other games didn’t do as much of a good job with it (IMO at least) either, most notably D3 (we all know about this one), Grim Dawn, and Last Epoch comes to mind as well

What were the problems of all these ?, quite simple really

D3 = Itemisation = 100% of your character, you are what you wear, period, that’s it
GD = Itemisation = too much random success, there are items that have a 3-5% to “trigger” a super devastating effect that will put all your equipped abilities to shame… Or more specifically ? - “Abundance of accidental success” is problem’s the name
LE = Itemisation = too similar items one to another, on paper they sound “really different” but really barely scratch any difference/s most of the time… 20% more fire damage or 15% more elemental damage along with some adaptive damage makes barely a dent of difference (except in a few small exception/skill-dedicated cases)

So, having those things in mind, would like to suggest/present a model in which items will feel IMPACTFUL and be quite different from one another, and have that impact feel quite different in usage

What are the ideas ?, well first of all no “cookie cutter” items, nothing that’s “mid-way”, have items that specialise into one specific or in rarer cases two types of damage but never have a sword that otherwise a wand would do (or vice versa, with very few exceptions)

In order to achieve those things, would suggest to DIVIDE (strong divide, not just slight) all the possible hit-effects (i.e. hit-effect pool) to a specific damage type, i.e. make things that have chance to be inflicted by a sword or axe MUCH DIFFERENT than the chance of things to be inflicted by a Bow, or a Wand or Staff, or a Mace, AS WELL AS (this one is also very important IMO) make the hit-effect pool for skills like Meteor much different than the pool for hit-effects for a skill like Magic Missile or any kind of generic projectile really

First of all I’d suggest 3 types of damage

1 - Melee
2 - Projectile
3 - AoE

On a simple glance, one can simply recognize that every single skill belongs to one of those categories or combines two most of the time (say for example Whirlwind = Melee + AoE, Ancient spear = Melee + Projectile, Fireball = Projectile + AoE, e.t.c.)

When those things are defined can go to the next step which I feel should be the best part of the game: make specialized types of hit effects for EACH, i.e.

Melee = Stun, Knockback, Armor pierce, Crushing blow, Backstab, Airbourne or Knockdown (airbourne for regular mob class, knockdown for brutes), Spectral hit

Projectile = Pierce, Critical hit, Root, Blind, Execute (requires a threshold of minimal % HP), Shackle, Spectral hit, Double-stack

AoE = Focused damage, Overcharge, Root, Airbourne or Knockdown, inflict debuff or Curse, Double-stack

As you can see these are roughly severely all divided, with a very few exceptions (Root is placed on both for Projectile and AoE, and Airbourne or Knockdown is possible for both Melee and AoE, and Spectral hit is placed on both Projectile and Melee)

Now, ofcourse come the generics, but they’re very little and rarer on rolls so the game feels different for most of the time, here are the special types of hit-effects to complete the whole list:

Fire damage has the chance to Ignite (apply DoT that while it lasts eats up target’s resistances)

Cold damage can apply Chill (chill = double succeptance to hit effects from all sources and 50% increased hit-effect damage taken)

Poison damage can apply Wither (wither = remove all self-healing sources from a target and take unlimited amount of stacks from DoTs)

Physical damage can inflict Bleed (an initially slow-losing HP state that gets increased on intensity of every further hit suffered, as well as increased damage taken per movement rate)

Lightning damage can apply Daze (temporarily put target into non-movable state until hit again)

Darkness can reset a Debuff or Curse, apply Silence or Root (one or the other, very rarely more than one at same time)

Once these two things are established think there’s a very healthy “item defining basis” to make itemisation work in as much as possible intended way/s

In order to make things more interesting/dynamic we’ll introduce one extra type of damage, we’ll call it Unavoidable (previously was named as guaranteed minimal), meaning there’s a portion of damage that’s guaranteed to apply regardless of target’s defenses (or resistance rates)

So, having all those things in mind let’s advance to the further definition of Set of Affixes:

Direct damage = Melee or Projectile (non-AoE)
Distant hits = Projectile or AoE (can be even close range but basically has to be out of close proximity of target, non-Melee)
Aerial damage = Melee or AoE (non-Projectile)

Sounds intuitive ?, great, now let’s “dive a bit” deeper into hit-effects per item type:

  • Sword = Knockback, Backstab, Unavoidable damage, or Bleed
  • Dagger = Backstab, Unavoidable damage, Bleed, or Inflict DoT
  • Mace or Club = Stun, Knockdown or Airbourne, Knockback, Armor Pierce
  • Axe = Knockback, Backstab, Unavoidable damage, Armor Pierce
  • Bow = All the abovementioned projectile-based hit-effects that can apply
  • Wand = Energy return, Critical hit, Shield/Barrier pierce, Cast-base Stat increases (Cast range, Cast speed, Channeling rate increase), various hit effects that are of type per kill
  • Staff = Same with Wands with increased intensity but also having an additional one: Multicast (it’s not double-cast i.e. double-damage by default, the % is 25% for start and can be directly or indirectly via other type affixes increased)

And one more thing: both Wands and Staves have one additional hit-effect in their pool for melee-combat specifically, those 2 are:

  • Burn target’s resource (consider Mana burn but this one applies to all resource types)
  • Spectral hit

One last note = we only used the OFFENSIVE pool of affixes for weaponry (i.e. didn’t list defensive ones, can add some later, for example block melee hit, or reflect damage to attacker, or summon barrier, well, all except one, knockback is a defense-primarily hit-effect most of the time)

Having everything set in place let’s “test” our pool of affixes:

Sword 1:

  • ATK: 1500
  • 15% chance to inflict bleed on hit (primary hit-effect)
  • 3-4 added bleed damage for 5 seconds (secondary damage)
  • Additional 12 unavoidable damage per hit

Sword 2:

  • ATK: 1500
  • 35% increased backstab damage (primary hit-effect, not affected by chance but rather by player’s positioning)
  • 25% chance to apply +5/sec Overtime poison damage (Can stack up to 3 times)
  • 15% chance to Wither on hit (Secondary hit effect, since DoT is Poison Wither is the hit-effect applied)

Sword 3:

ATK 1500:

  • 30-40 added fire damage (close range only)
  • 33% chance to ignite targets on hit
  • 25% Chance to execute ignited targets (execute threshold increased by 25%)
  • 25% chance to repel melee attack (attacker takes back 15% of damage per hit)

So DESPITE all these 3 are Swords (same attack and everything) they’re obviously quite different both thematically but also in impact and situations they’re used for (i.e. best case scenarios they’re used for)

The first one is a physical-based sword for fast slashing in stacking bleed and decent “unavoidable damage” component to it, and a good sword for fighting anything that has high amounts of armor or resistances and doesn’t have fast regen rates (especially if used with stuff that displaces targets cause bleed maximizes that way)

The second one is more of a dagger-type & execute themed sword applying poison damage and wither (stops regen on target), quite a good one as opposed to the first sword to fight high-regen mobs

And

The third one is a bit more spell-themed designed to reign fire and burn opponents with a bit of added self-defence mechanism in the form of chance to repel melee attacks and apply damage-returned to the attacker when that happens

For showcasing a bit of the potential to further depth last one could’ve just had a % chance to explode target on kill but you get the idea for those things… (more damage, vs, more hit-effect power, vs hit-effect % chance application, vs more damage vs targets that suffer some impairings…)

The IMPORTANT ASPECT out of this is that minimizes accidental success, everything feels INTENDED FOR PURPOSE, along with probably intuitively figuring out of how best ways to use these

There aren’t much of “cookie-cutter” aspects in them (except the 3rd one a bit maybe but even that one has a relatively high fire damage, but even that is limited to close range combat only, meaning can use both with melee attacks AND AoE, meaning it’s not just outright buffing Fireball spam or Meteor or something)… Ofcourse, “not so fitting” things like that can occur, but when they do it will probably be in a form of a more intended purpose, i.e. +X-Y fire damage component (generic) without the range limitation or +X% direct damage, thus affecting and adding projectiles to skills-affected list… OR, or even in most of the rarer cases, could have a bonus affix of things like outright +X to X and Y skill, thus FURTHER SPECIALISING the purpose of the item (maybe)

Regardless, you get the idea, having a well-defined system of affix pools like this that not only MINIMIZES accidental success, but also MINIMIZES overlap between all the three:

Skill damage types (melee, vs projectile, vs AoE), Element damage types (Physical vs Fire vs Lightning, e.t.c.), as well as item-types (Sword vs Mace vs Club vs Bow e.t.c.)

In general the game must have a really nice significant difference (and reason) why someone would/should use one item over another (not just have cookie-cutter stuff, for most of the time)

Regardless, wanted to point this one out for discussion as well as a very positive potential critique, thoughts (or even Questions maybe ? :thinking:) ? :slight_smile:

EDIT: tried to put a bit too much into one image but think will help :stuck_out_tongue:

https://sketchpad.pro/ABA10A4CEB427D0DF02:jealqcph#p2,0,0,r0,s1

Also added 3 additional bonus chances:

  • % to immobilize healthy/injured (i.e. if your hit-effect by choice is of type immobilize it can occur more often based on target’s HP state)
  • % to overpower resourceful/depleted (i.e. if your hit-effect by choice is type overpower, it can occur more often based on target’s Resource state)
  • % to deal bonus damage to unsuspected targets (i.e. if your type of hit-effect by choice is of type “disable defences” next attack will be empowered by X%)
1 Like
2

Lets look at this item,
stat 3 rely on stat 2, which then rely on stat 1. WIthout stat 1, 2 & 3 are useless. Unless you have another fire source, & even if you have a fire source, stat 3 is still useless without stat 2.

Then also how hard is it to roll ALL 3 on one item?

IMO, the effects when combined is fine (the numerical value can be tune for sure) the 3 stats should be single stats, maybe a legendary stat or rare stat that is restricted to one per item.

Lego power,

  • 30-40 (50-70 for 2-hander) added fire damage (close range only)
  • 33% chance to ignite targets on hit (1 sec internal cooldown) (balance between slow & fast weapon()
  • 25% Chance to execute ignited targets (execute threshold increased by 25%)

Then this stat

  • 35% increased backstab damage (primary hit-effect, not affected by chance but rather by player’s positioning)

Trying to get to back of mob in an isometric arpg…? Idea is good for stealth, 3rd person game, but not isometric arpg.

I would change “backstab” to “first hit” (reset after 10 sec not hitting same mob)

3

It may seem too random to you but don’t think it is so, probably stat 3 is but not 1 and 2

As mentioned above, if the primary elemental damage type of an item is Fire then the applied hit-effect (from element type as opposed to an item type) will be rolled as that exact same type, there’s no point in adding chance to Wither on a Fire damage item is it ? (it will be Ignite :slight_smile: )

I mean it may roll ADITIONALLY a chance to Wither so Poison builds get empowered

IDK I like the idea of backstab (or at least rare hits), its much less random than Crit for example, as mentioned above Backstab is a hit-effect specialized only for Melee type damage and skills (ranged and AoE can’t apply it) so if you intend to be in the thick of things and into the fray, might as well have some bonuses of successful backstabing/rear-attack hits

Regardless point being, the “algorythm” would go something like this:

  • 1st Affix: Hit-effect or Added Spectral-hit component (Elemental) damage, (could add additional stuff in the pool here but even 2 is enough to create down further diversity)

  • 2nd Affix: Type % increase (could be elemental %, could be skill-type%, could be conditional), OR in case of hit-effect roll above can also empower the 1st affix

  • 3rd Affix: Target-affected bonuses (depending on rolls above for either the primary or elemental-type hit-effect rolled), DoT-based added component, or any other offensive affix

So yes, the rolls are conditional, starts with one or the other and then “branches out” quite a bit, I mean may sound “little too simple” to you but isn’t cause it’s not the same to roll a 15-22 Fire damage “Spectral” damage component to a weapon (the one that was 30-40 fire to close-combat for example) depending if it’s a Spear, Staff, Sword, or otherwise, though I can see how the example above was a bad one (should still be able to add a secondary or primary hit effect to the weapon, Explosion per kill is something more that a Wand or Staff would have to have and chance to Block attack is something more that a Sword should have yes, so would have to have another pool of “Defensive affixes” per item type to make it diverse enough as is)

Regardless, point being:

Roll 1 = A or B
Roll 2 = if A then C1, C2 or C3, if B then D1, D2, D3, or D4
Roll 3 = If C1 or D1 (meaning secondary hit-effects) then X buff to C1 or D1, otherwise generic buff for offensive usages
Roll 4 = if no hit-effect rolled so far then a defensive or utility one for the item type, otherwise either a “Secondary source” damage buff (like Summons or while X, while channeling, while moving, while out of combat, while vulnerable, e.t.c.) or a simple bunch (2 would be enough) of +X to X skill

Here’s a roll example:

Spectral-damage" component rolled 2nd and/or 3rd affix are marked in bold-italic

1st affix:

  • Hit-effect (based on item-type)
  • Spectral damage component (+X-Y fire/cold/lightning]

2nd affix:

  • +X% poison/fire/lightning damage, OR
  • +X/sec damage overtime (element type)
  • +X Unavoidable damage, +X maximum Stacks applied on DoT/Debuff/Curse, OR +X% duration on DoT/Curse
  • + X% chance to Ignite/Chill/Wither/Curse (for a Fire/Cold/Poison/Darkness component respectively)

3rd affix:

  • +X% bleed/vs-stunned/backstab damage, OR
  • +X str/dex/int/agi, OR
  • +X attack speed, Subsequent hits deal additional X, or Every Xth hit does additional X-Y (Insert Spectral Damage component or Unavoidable, or Guaranteed hit-effect here)
  • +X% damage vs Ignited/Chilled/Withered/Cursed/e.t.c. (or X% chance to apply additional debuff/curse/hit-effect/whatever vs these)

Depending on whether the first component was rolled as Spectral-damage component, the latter will be added (or removed) from the roll pool, but IF they were added could roll none, one, or both

TL-DR = The 3rd sword rolled all the 3 (obviously rare case but non-the-less, a possibility)

But again, yes 4th affix should have some additional per-item defense-based or utility-type hit-effect to further diversify whether the Spectral-component (even when roll all 3 affixes based on that first roll) was rolled on a Wand, Staff, Sword, Bow, e.t.c… :thinking:

Regardless, borderline and final point (in general) being:

Don’t think that there’s ever a good algorythm that’s non-conditional on new affixes that aren’t depending on one rolled previously

i.e. have to narrow-down the possibilities of total randomness a bit cause there can be anti-synergies or don’t go well along much can otherwise roll quite a bit :smiley:

Perhaps I’m wrong but think that most of the time the good/decent items are generated on “conditional” pools, i.e. the pool for next affix for rolls depending on what was rolled previously and most of the time there will be some more or less probable synergies :slight_smile:

1 Like
4

Rare proc effects should not be so powerful that they become the only thing that matters. That definitely is bad. But having rare proc effects themselves are fine. Especially if you can then build your character around increasing proc effect chances.
In general, Blizzard should bring back the effects from Angelic, Demonic, Ancestral system they had. Where Ancestral increased proc chances. So many build possibilities is such an affix.

I have a different view on GD in any case. Easily the best itemization in the genre. Not perfect of course, but a good foundation to build upon.

Sounds interesting to me. But maybe unnecessarily complicated (I rarely say that :D). Having fewer different effects, and more cross-over, might both be easier to design and balance, and offer more freedom. By having very isolated proc effects for each type of skill, I fear that you also risk hurting hybrids. Making a build that tries to use proc effects for both Melee and Projectile skills might be severely disadvantages compared to a pure melee etc. Which is the opposite way of where the game should go, imo.
Would be fine if some of these effects are skill type specific for sure. But maybe just a few of them. Would be fine if AoE had less proc effects in general, AoE tends to be overpowered in these games, so anything that takes away some of its power is potentially good.

Except for the first one, those affixes sound better as legendary or unique affixes imo. Rather than normal affixes.

Also, a bit too many on-hit effects on just one item imo. I like on-hit effects, as with the aforementioned “increase proc effects” affixes, that should be added back into the game imo, but at the same time, not everything should be proc effects. Then the game just becomes an RNG fest. Random effects should just be one of many ways to build a character. Should be viable to choose to not rely on hit effects at all.

Backstab dmg mechanism works okay for Lost Ark. So the isometric and relatively fast-paced combat should not be a problem.

5

I guess I should precise what each of those mean in order to get a more precise picture of what it means:

Airbourne = not targettable by AoE but taking double damage from Direct damage sources (Projectiles and Melee)

Knocked down = Only targettable by AoE, Melee and Projectiles miss but targets on the ground take double damage from AoEs

Armor pierce = Reduce target’s defenses (all subsequent physical hits will deal more)

Bleed = Small amount of DoT but stacks up based on times hit while active, resets duration with each consecutive hit and applies faster on targets moving (a bit of special difference than Poison or say Fire DoT, obviously nice to use with displacements in synergy)

Spectral hit = Apply all the spectral-damage type affixes on your gear (all at once) on a single hit, so depending on how many “Spectral damage” type (+X-Y fire/lightning/cold or +X/sec poison/darkness/blood) affixes in gear, and ofcource target’s resistances = this can be either super devastating or “meh” quite a bit

Double-stack = “Attach” 2 charges of DoT at once (helps ramp up DoTs faster), bonus is that DoTs are low-capped (in order to prevent too single-target effective) by default to 2 or 3, so an application of this also allows to apply one bonus stack of DoT on target while it’s lasting (unless withered, if that is the case there are no limits to how many stacks of DoT target can take)

Focused hit = bonus damage applied to AoE in center area, and can also be applied in the form of “if less than X targets hit”, emphasizing usage of AoE skills for precision sniping (a bit bizzare maybe but sure people will want to snipe things up even with AoE)

Overcharge = Reverse from Focused hit, deal bonus based on targets affected (+X, or +X% for each target affected, or +X or +X% for every target per hit affected above X)

Inflict debuff or Curse (pretty straightforward, can be in the forms of any curse or debuff in game)

Double-stack - same as Projectile but in this particular case this can apply to debuffs and curses as well (more impactful debuff or hit)

The BIGGEST difference that one might need to keep in mind is that Crit no longer applies to Melee combat, is Projectile-only, and AoE has a separate/special “Multicast” version of crit instead (by default the power of the 2nd “free of charge” spell/skill is 25% but can be increased via “hit-effect power %” type affixes)

ALSO

Don’t forget that Chill = +50% hit-effect chance and damage taken from all hit-effect sources so even that can affect quite a bit

And

Ignite = -X% target’s spell resistances/sec (longer duration of ignition can really reduce target’s resistances and open them for elemental damage)

As you can see most of them are either quite generic or interchangeable, they’re not entirely exclusive but not inclusive either entirely… It also applies some bits of skill requirements to maximize usage:

For example

  1. Specialize/buff an ability like Ground stomp to knock-down everything and then use Upheaval (AoE) while everything’s on the ground for quite the effect (double damage from AoE)

OR

  1. Specialize Meteor to knock back and throw stuff in air and then use a super fast-target precision ability (like specialized Magic missile or Arcane-Torrent like ability) to deal huge amounts of single-target/focused damage to them while in the air (the duration is probably a tad bit lesser than knocked down targets but should do the thing)

OR say something like:

  1. Use Ancient Spear with Stun or Daze (either by item, by build or by chance if Daze% on hit) and then go behind target to apply backstab bonuses… Depending on affixes (i.e. Melee hit-effect % power bonus, generic hit-effect power % bonus increases, or even +X% bonus vs Immobilized, the “Come over here” can really end up being devastating, or underwhelming)

OR a very simple one, that I’d imagine people would have a lot of fun with:

  1. Get dual-wielding Rogue or Barb with high amounts of unavoidable damage per hit with high-attack speed blades, and then shred knights everything (especially knights that otherwise are supposed to tank quite a bit of physical hits)

The point being, having different hits per skill type really emphasizes the comboes/synergies (or lack there of) of the player in quite an impactful way, and I think that’s a really good trait to have in game, all the while the added bonus of really low chances of overlap (think people on the long run would appreciate this)

P.S., just realized that forgot to add CB above to item types (namely Maces, meaning Clubs, Mauls, Hammers, and all that stuff), BUT on second thought, think it would be a nice touch “precise touch” to have it roll (in a special extra damage affix slot out from yet another specialized pool-set with things like: %extra damage to elites, %extra damage vs brutes, vs archers, vs casters, vs Shields, something like that) on 2Hs exclusively :slight_smile:

6

Unless things like bleed proc or poison proc and stuff like that are tuned mega high, they are just fluff damage without any real impact or build defining.

I really like instead of it being proc based damage. You have +% chance to bleed as an affix on certain itemslots. You can then get 100% chance to bleed on hit. Then you can have modifiers that scale bleed damage on gear/paragon board and whatnot.
Now you can have a build that will always cause bleed, and with bleed damage modifiers it is your build. A bleed build.

7

Damage over time (DoT) was done badly in all Diablo games. Not enough gears, and stats, skills to buff it. PoE has actually done a decent job. you can have viable DoT builds.

3 Likes
8

Someone correct me if I’m wrong but I think DoT was always a capped (max-stacks possible) type thing, always feels like an “up to 3 times” to me

So yes you can like attack a target 3 times, stack up some poison but any further than that is just waste of an attack cause all you’re doing is just refreshing the DoT without further increasing it’s intensity… :thinking:

That’s why I think things like +X max stacks of DoT (or say max stacks of DoTs and Impairing effects reduced by X for defensive) gear is a thing one can play around and open either another avenue of things (for both offensive and defensive side of things)

Regardless, again, someone correct me if I’m wrong but always felt like DoT is a thing that stacks up to 3 times (or even less, 2x only ?) and any extra effort put becomes unimpactful by quite a bit

9

The proposals remind me of POE that has hit the nail in the head. Everything that will make D4 resemble POE is by definition a progress in my books. People that scream “unnecessary complication” are just asking for dumbing-down the game. The game should reward real skill and deep thinking and that is not just fast fingers.

10

I’d say there is such a thing as being too reliant on proc chances, especially depending on the outcome. “Just smack the mob and hope for the best!” can lead to some frustrating dry spells.

That said, DoT abilities can be tricky for a few reasons. The first simply being that these kinds of games tend to thrive on speed, and subsequently, efficiency. That means burst damage. If it takes a strong DoT 3 seconds to what a burst can do in 1, you’re probably not going to see many people running DoT builds. DoT and Ranged Attacks also risk introducing imbalance through kiting, as a player may wind up being able to kill a mob they shouldn’t be able to normally if they just run it around enough and reapply as needed.

Pragmatically, I agree with the idea of “stacking”, especially if you have 2 or more people using the same ability so one isn’t rendered useless, but how these stacks manifest their strength is also important. Going 1+1+1+1+1 over 10s isn’t going to inspire people. 1+2+3+4+5 starts looking beefier on output, but you can also do interesting things at stack level like diminishing healing on the 2nd, improving total duration with the 3rd, increasing vulnerability to other forms of damage with the 4th, while the 5th could start doing things like increasing resource costs to use skills, slow attack speed, and so on. This could make a person with this particular skill useful for boss encounters, while you can also introduce items that increase the number of stacks applied per strike or even break the standard cap and begin adding other additional perks.

Nonetheless, D2’s poison system needs to be avoided at all cost where a weaker poison can negate a stronger one just because it was applied most recently. Something like you can’t burn, shiver, choke, bleed, and be poisoned at the same time should be avoided, too. Either way, if you have an attack with a DoT, the DoT always needs to land. If the target is resistant in some manner, then let that affect potency or duration. This also makes combination builds more appealing since you have a skill that does extra things if a specific debuff is at play, then you know you can always 1-2(-3-4-etc) for maximum effect and combat flow. But similar to my disdain of D3, short term (de)buffs should be avoided as much as possible. Like, nothing under 15 seconds, please.

11

You can go play PoE then, no need to wait for D4. Since you already like POE so much.

For sure PoE has some good stuff, but it has also awful stuff, like boated unnecessary complexity that fill only egos of “ hardcore arpg elites” & god awful multiplayer experience which is why it is still niche.

12

To reward actual skill you need to have lower complexity to allow the devs to actually balance the game for co-op and pvp.

Otherwise you’re just rewarding people finding broken builds, not actual mechanical skill.

The more complex the game the harder balancing becomes. No way around that.

Finding good items and farming is also a much better way to reward players than rewarding them for setting up their build the same way they saw in a youtube video.

Making Diablo resemble POE more and more just makes it POE.

POE are making a POE 2.

Diablo shouldn’t try to be POE it should be Diablo 4.

1 Like
13

This is only partially true

The MOST IMPORTANT thing when designing or “coming up” with a system is to make sure of as much as close to zero (as minimal as possible) overlapping

A “Broken” build is when you have items that give you the very same thing that a skill does, in a direct way… A “Broken” build can be maximize Strength and then have every single item in gear be able to roll it, bad example but shows the problem… Items should give other things that skills or Attributes do (for the most part), and if there ARE the possibilities to have that happen, make sure it’s well tested on limit

That’s why I went broader a bit to introduce different types of hit-effects for type of skill, MINIMIZES OVERLAPPING, with minimal overlap can immediately know whether the Crit for example is broken or a certain skill of the Rogue tree is (just a very simple example to understand how it is)

Overlap also allows to avoid “unintentional connections” between things, say you have decided to spec for Crit build but also somehow/someway/unintended but it’s there cause of overlaps and whatever = Stun should benefit from it :stuck_out_tongue:

I mean, unless SPECIFICALLY TARGETTED and invested into such a possibility gear alone (or yet even more than that, the system of skills, gear, and builds) shouldn’t do it

That’s how a good system works, it has a well-defined basic ground for everything that when new “cards” get put on top they can immediately seen whether or not they fit (or make things overlap thus rendering less efficient everything else indirectly)

Never even touched PoE, as said myself wanted to combine suboptimal experiences and suggest some guidelines to not repeat mistakes that I consider them to be

The super high arching goal was to:

1 - Minimize overlap and severely limit it (overlaps are the biggest problems of everything, it’s like putting many spices in every meal and when everything goes south can’t determine whether a certain spice is the problem or perhaps a whole meal wasn’t good to even begin with, e.t.c.)

2 - Minimize accidental success… IDK about you but I find it odd and bad really… Sure some people want to “rave” into summons and other kinds of “unexpected factors” or “ridiculous” builds but the point is those too should feel well “themed” and work with/in a certain purpose, i.e. not be a “cookie cutter” for everything :thinking:

And if it would require for D4 to be more like PoE then let it be (at least to some point where it’s still within a grasp of intuitivity) :slight_smile:

This is only the case if your build REALLY relies on hit-effects to proc in order to work (that’s why again have divided hit-effect pools by types of skill)… I mean is it possible for someone to equip 4-5 AoE skills at the same time and HIGHLY RELY on curses and debuffs ?, maybe, but is it recommendable ? (probably not), ESPECIALLY if the items equipped can say increase damage or debuff durations and stuff as opposed to proc % chances…

What do you think I introduced the “Unavoidable damage” damage type in the pool of Affixes ? :blush:

But even better, it’s not just for DoTs, it’s also applicable for “Shotgun” builds :smiley: , equip lots of of “Unavoidable damage” affixes and find an item that says “Fireball now splits in 3 and travel in an Arc hitting ground as an AoE”, see if it works for sniping brutes and other “tough” guys from close range :slight_smile:

That’s wayy too specific but the good news is as I mentioned, there isn’t only one but 4 types of DoTs (could introduce more but whatever), Poison, Dark, Fire, Bleed

First one has the ability to empower the other 3 but Bleed doesn’t actually require wither (just lots of hits, or a combo and then some displacement to finish :P)

Another alternative is to stack Dark, these baddies proc Curses (there are quite a few good ones to capitalize on, a bit of difference can exist but in ideal situations should overperform Poison I think)

And fire ?, well they generally make your skills no longer obsolete (no matter the resistance, longer durations of Ignite should soften up tougher targets to be able to kill)

But yeah, I think that “Unavoidable damage” is a nice touch to affect DoTs more than probably anything (except Multicast procs maybe) :slight_smile:

14

I would do it with immense pleasure the minute POE would fix the bugged system of arbitrary bans for bogus reasons.
That was the reason i paid and played D3 and why i am playing DI.
If i can’t have POE at least i can have something that reminds me of POE.
As about the “complexity” of POE, this argument comes from people with limited intellectual firepower.
Complexity is a relative thing. Complexity compared with what. If compared with dumbed-down products something would appear “complex” and vice-versa.

15

Stop the nonsense please. many PoE hardcore creator mentioned the bloated complexity.

People need to stop confuse depth (which is what we wanted) with complexity. Simplicity with Shallowness.

An ARPG should have depth, & complexity should only be a neccesity. Simple to learn as possible without being shallow, & take time to master.

IRL example are chess, Football (soccer), Photoshop.

You can learn the rules of chess within a day, or two. Its not complex, but it has a lot of depth.

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…and? Who gave those players the ultimate license to be the Judge of that? What are their qualifications in that matter besides some private individuals that play and profit from a game which they do not design?
I agree with what you say in the rest of your post, but fail to see how this applies to POE.
If you have something precise to say about POE, here is the place to put it. Support Gems, Skill-Tree and the extensive use of tags (projectile, combustion etc) in itemization are superior to anything in D3/DI.

17

As an an individual we get to make our own opinions, judgements, and have our own values. Just because you may not think so, that doesn’t invalidate how others may see it.

18

Correct. Without the ability to properly balance, skill is less of a determining factor. Just look at WoW PvP for example. PvPers do not want balance because it would expose many as nit being too skilled but rather, having too much time to grind or being account sharing/win traders just to get the top gear.

They tried to do something with the Trial of the Gladiator, where all gear was normalized, but the “top” PvPers threw such a hissy fit over it, the idea was canned.

19

You are the one that make the claim that closer is D4 to PoE the better it should be YOU that convince us, not for us to prove you wrong.

But I am kind, I will comment on your 2 examples. having tags are “nice to have”, not sure how thats groundbreaking.

For the gem. I think its okay, I do not like it personally. It is against the one main bad thing people complain about D3. You are nothing without your gear. In PoE, you are your gems. Take out the gems, & you are as as good as a kitten in battle.

Also the support gem, maybe 20% are cool, like GMP, multistrike, but most are use just for damage stacking. They could have integrated into the skill tree.

Open Path of building, Pick a main skill, then filter from best to worst in damage , boom, or play around until you get the bigest output. Don’t ven get me started on the stupid awakened gems & such, which is just more damage stacking.

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Lol. You think the top pvpers need gear to make them win? That’s cute