D4 Itemization Blog, post feedback here!

General Discussion
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https://us.diablo3.com/en/blog/23230076/system-design-in-diablo-iv-part-ii-12-3-2019

Here it is folks! They’re asking for feedback, let’s give it to them!

I like the unnamed consumable that adds legendary powers to rares.
Ancient legendaries gone-Good!
Atk/Def removed from ALL items-Good!
Need some more info on the angelic/demonic/ancestral power mechanic and what skills/affixes they are attached to.

David, I for one love the continued communication with the community. This is something we have been asking for for years. Keep up the good work.

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Some of the things they discussed I’ve been saying for years. Weapons should be focused on atk and armor on def; while jewelry on other stats. Glad they are going in that direction (for now).

Ancients would have inflated the power of legendary items, so glad that is being considered for the scrap bin. Legendary affix onto rare items? Solid.

The biggest question my friends and I have had so far is, will rare items drop with more than 1 type of affix? Like – will they drop with both demonic AND angelic? Will that be part of the RNG? Trying to find something with -only- the type you are aiming?

Be wary of too much RNG Blizzard. RNG is a huge reason early Diablo 3 felt so bad. There needs to be balance otherwise it just ends up a slog.

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I’ll post my othe rpost here and delete my other one =)

New blog post:
<<can’t link on D3 forums apparently yet>>

New stats which seem like they could be interesting:

  • Angelic Power , which increases the duration of all beneficial effects (like self-buffs or healing)
  • Demonic Power , which increases the duration of all negative effects (like debuffs or damage over time)
  • Ancestral Power , which increases the chance of on-hit effects (aka increased proc chance)

We need to see this in action before making any comments. I like adding an additional stat that impacts specific avenues of play, not just a generic X-increase for EVERYTHING. With that said this needs to played with (in a beta invite, right blizz? :wink: ) for the power and implementation to be judged.

The post showed some examples where your level of X power triggered conditional bonuses on items. This similar system could (and should) be brought into spells imho and also involve some ‘mixing’ of powers to unleash hybrid spells. Say a buff that with +50 demonic power would also create a burn AoE effect around you.

Overall I like this avenue and would love to see it fleshed out more and integrated more into the character/skill/talent areas

==================
Attack/Defense Changes

  • Attack and Defense were removed from jewelry
  • Attack removed from armor items

I guess… ehhhh… makes more sense from an implementation standpoint but removes some stats from items. I guess it is a net neutral to me more or less.

==================================
New Item for Rares and Changes to items:

We are going to remove Ancient Legendaries from the game in their current form entirely.

I don’t know whether I like this or not personally but I do love what the team added:

Our newest proposal hits a couple different feedback points: addressing the usefulness of Rare (Yellow) items as well as increasing the depth and complexity of player gear choices in the endgame.

We will be introducing a new type of consumable item (which we haven’t yet named). This item would be earned by killing monsters, just like other items. It would have one random Legendary affix on it, drops only in the late endgame, and can be used to apply that affix to any non-Legendary item.

This means a few things:

  • We create an “elective mode for items” that is experienced after players have had time to experience Rare and Legendary items normally, as well as familiarized themselves with a variety of affixes
  • This adds a way to introduce new methods of play without adding even more power to endgame items
  • Rare items with the best affixes on them are always useful and retain value

I will say that this seems to be quite a good system. It makes Rares meaningful, adds an additional item hunt to the game, and could also… depending on rarity of these drops… add quirky changes to builds based on these drops.

I would implore the DEV team if this decision continues to make these items VERY RARE as it’ll add, over time, some uniqueness to builds as different “legendary shards” are leveraged.

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Wish they talked more about any crafting systems they will have in play but I like what I read so far.

The YouTube Feedback video I made shortly after Blizzcon I suggested making a way to remove legendary affixes to be applied to rare items so i was happy to see they are going that direction whether or not I had a hand in it or not is still a cool feeling nonetheless.

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a good start, i’m liking the communication. I hope they keep this up. I look forward to going to my first ever blizzcon next year and getting my hands on this game haha.

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I’ve always been a fan of crafting / customizing gear. The randomness of drops in D3 was always a big turn off for me. Nothing worse than seeing a legendary drop and finding out it’s not useful for your character. I’d rather spend time farming materials for a chance to create and item that would better fit my character and build. Having to farm specific mats to craft specific gear that makes me powerful enough to take down a specific boss in the story or complete a specific zone I think is a much more enjoyable grind than just complete randomness of drops. Ex. Boss does increased frost damage and is easily damaged by fire. So you don’t stand a chance if you don’t have gear that counters those affixes. Working towards building gear to counter those affixes makes the anticipation of fighting the boss more excited and defeating it more rewarding.

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I’m excited for these itemization design ideas!!

-The unnamed consumable item sounds really promising!
-attack on weapons = great
-defense on armor = great
-no attack/defense on jewelry = great
-removing ancient items for the boost on other items types is a great idea
-i really think the demonic/angelic/ancestral platform will bring more diversity

If all these plans hold true to the rest of the ideas we’re all dying to hear about, in regards to power, then i think we’re in for a real treat. I absolutely love the idea that you won’t be able to just pick a build from the internet and roll with it.

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The Angelic/Demonic/Ancestral idea is awesome, and everything else in the blog points towards additional depth and replayability. I’m even more excited to play now.

edit: Rare items are going to be relevant! Angelic/Demonic/Ancestral stats create that dynamic where you have to choose one or the other and possibly make sacrifices along the way. This will enable build complexity and give theory-crafters something to work with. Apart from these stats, are all affixes going to be useful and relevant, or will there be a fine balance between powerful, useful, and useless?

Solely picking your items based on Attack and Defense will almost never be the optimal way to play

This is good. The “green arrow good, red arrow bad” meme can stop now.

We will be introducing a new type of consumable item (which we haven’t yet named). This item would be earned by killing monsters, just like other items. It would have one random Legendary affix on it, drops only in the late endgame, and can be used to apply that affix to any non-Legendary item.

Making rares even more valuable and relevant. I imagine these items aren’t going to be too common, but if they are, there’s a large pool of legendary affixes so finding the one perfect for your build won’t be easy.

Based on your feedback, we’ve changed Attack to only be found on weapons, Defense to being only on armor, and we’ve removed both Attack and Defense from jewelry entirely.

Good. Slapping attack/defense on everything seemed like the game was going in the direction of stacking attack and defense and calling it a day, nobody wants that.

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I want to know if Attack/Defense still scale exponentially between item rarities, for example: blue magic boots with 100 defense vs yellow rare boots with 500 defense.

I can only hope this is not the case, as higher rarity items already have more affixes on them. I would like to be able to use the blue item if it has the right affix for my build even though it rolled with less total affixes. Making the difference in Attack/Defense values between item rarities too high would obsolete this choice.

A good example would be:

Normal: 70-100
Magic: 80-110
Rare: 90-120

Having some overlap in Attack/Defense values makes for interesting player decisions; Do I equip that blue item with more defense but worse affix? Do I equip the rare item with a good affix, but slightly less defense? A blue item has the affix I want, but that rare item has an extra affix and a bit more defense. Et cetera.

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just make items tradeable. No soulbounds. An in game economy based on trade like in diablo 2. Is what this game needs. Items with fixed stats / attributes that can vary within a set range make the most sense to me. Example. Finding a vamp gaze but it rolling 15% dr vs 20% both are good, both have value but the perfect one is much more sought after. Items need to drive the endgame. Just keep looking back and d2 if you have a question, and the answere will be there.

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I want to share my 1 concern so far about itemization - do not make skills dependent on the weapon damage like it was in D3. It eliminates the skill-leveling sense of completion. If this was mentioned already somewhere - apologies. I have not seen it.

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Absolutely love the idea of keeping attack and defense stats on the relevant gear. One thing I’m not entirely sure I agree with in the new legendary affix item. It may just be the way I read it but I’m not seeing the difference between that and equipping the legendary itself. Though I am 100% behind the idea of modifying gear after it’s obtained to tailor it to your build.

Thx all!

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Yes, I agree the added Angelic, Demonic & Ancient is brand new and very interesting!
Bravo to the designers

The game should be a blend of the ‘best of the best’ of all 3 games.
The fact that the designers are going to make rares viable is outstanding!
The fact that the designers want feedback early in the development is outstanding.
Adding more affixes is, well you know, outstanding!

Minor feedback item: Think about adding in belt, bracers and maybe shoulders.

Limiting what affixes and their strength can drop on specific items can help from getting into that BIS item syndrome.

Cool down reduction, maybe should be limited to certain slots only.
Critical hit damage ditto. Maybe others too.

Seems to me your taking a good approach to keep certain stats from being too overpowered and necessary in every slot.

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I really like what I’ve read.

I completely understand the removal of Defense from weapons and Attack from armor, but I also can see where those stats could still remain in certain cases.

For instance, the Barb has a kick attack so its reasonable that some boots could include an attack stat. Weapons can also be used to parry and block so I don’t see why defense can’t roll on some weapons.

Not a big deal all in all, but just something to consider.

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I’m not sure I like the sounds of the Angelic, Demonic, and Ancestral power stuff. To me it doesn’t catch me as very Diablo-esk in terms of itemization. I feel like it just gives you 1 more thing to have to worry about to balance. And seems like an inconvenience in game also…

As for the attack/defense changes. Those sound on point. Got no qualms with any of that part.

And lastly, the Ancient Legendary replacement sounds like a nice way to spice things up a bit. Kinda feels like we might get magical and rare items that might have some use even though they may not be overall best in slot, they might be best in slot for a specific build. Which I like. D2 had a few builds like that where it was best to use a magical wand or something because of the stats it was able to get.
thumbs up

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Thank you David and your team for moving so quickly to address feedback on itemization. I very much enjoyed reading your post as I didn’t think I could be more excited for Diablo IV than I already was. Thank you so much for removing Ancients from the loot pool, for making Rares relevant, for making it harder to just look up a build online and for there to not be an easy BiS checklist. Very happy to see you engaging with the community and revealing early thought processes and plans for iteration. Can’t wait to see all the systems/features in the months/years to come. Keep up the amazing work!

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The theory is you could find a rare item with overall better affixes than the relevant legendary and use this item to make the rare a better version of the legendary, instead of the rare being worthless because it wouldn’t have the legendary power.

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It’s a very good idea, I thought they would allow a rare item to drop with 6 affixes opposed to 4 on a legendary but this is much better,

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The angelic / demonic / ancestral affixes sound like the perfect replacement for skill runes! It hits all the design goals:

  • ✓ Item affixes should be a meaningful part of character power
  • ✓ Creates interesting choices when deciding which items to equip
  • ✓ Embraces the fantasy of each type of item (ie. angelic items give angelic powers, and ditto for demonic, ancestral)
  • ✓ Easy to learn, difficult to master
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(I posted on another topic, just gonna copy it here as well!)

I am VERY impressed, and happy as well!

  • The most pressing issue (item power creeping/higher tiers always trampling lower tiers) seems to be solved;
  • The endgame consumable seems AWESOME, it got me excited! (Let’s just plan carefully which slots can “receive a legendary power” so we dont overdo it!);
  • Attack/Defense generic buffs removal from items;

Now, in my humble opinion, we should have discussions on these secondary points:

  • Getting rid of “Trifecta Meta”. Mainly Crit Chance/Crit Damage, really. What is this game’s obssession with Critical Hits? Simply popping up huge numbers? In D3, this is one of the main reasons why 90% of other item stats were useless. Since Skills/Spells have their own Damage now (not based on weapon damage), I believe this problem is somewhat minimized, still, move away from this. Let critical hits be RARE and powerful, meaning. Add a different death animation for enemy kills with Critical Hits… You know, actually play the fantasy of the word.

Still on this issue, the “Dol” rune shown reads: “When active, gain 50% critical strike chance for 7 seconds.” JESUS, this is the most broken thing I’ve EVER seen in an ARPG. This is ridiculously over the top, as in… feels like a 6-piece set effect. Which you can proc however you want, since you can pick the “condition” to trigger it.

  • Removal of multiplicative/percentage-based bonuses. No more +XX% bonus Cold Damage. Add flat amounts. It’s way easier to balance, and WAY cooler to look at. Basic/Initial items give + 30 Cold Damage to Spells. Higher level Items give +200 Cold Damage to Spells.

(I’m mainly suggesting this so we dont have Best on Slot items which give +XX% to Frozen Orb and becomes the absolut must FOREVER. It also makes all other kinds of stats useless. I have no problem with % as long as you do them right.)

For Life/Defense: Low level amulets give +30 HP. Higher level amulets give +300HP. You get it… Percentage “Defense” is only ok for Elemental Resistances.

  • Item levels. Specially when we’re leveling up (the main/core experience). Will drops “scale” to players’ level? This didnt work in an interesting way in D3. Every level you gained pretty much meant that previous items were now useless…
  • Is this “item drop” scaling thing a good thing at all?
  • I’m still VERY much in favor of a stat squish from the get go. No need for a random Rare basic boot having 1500 Defense; this pretty much sets the tone for all other number balancing around the game;

PS: The Angelic/Demonic/Ancient idea seems VERY cool as well, kuddos for the brainstorming!

EDIT: Added a few things.

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