D4 Itemization Blog, post feedback here!

General Discussion
307

not sure if anyone mentioned this idea, but since we are having some sort of seasons in d4 as well (which is a great idea) it would be lovely to see legendary items in next season from previous season’s top leaderboards players with their names on one of the equipped items meaning;

  • One of the 1st ranked player’s items (the one he/she crafted to perfection) will be available in legendary items pool to be dropped in the next season with his name on it.
  • Some players are indeed legendary with their hours spent playing the game so this is just a small token to them.
  • Example: “Cindercoat” will become “[Player Name]'s Cindercoat”
  • The drop rate for this item will be significantly higher than the usual “Cindercoat”, almost like an ancient drop rate for this item.
  • The item will keep its added/crafted affixes and changes made by player.
  • This will save a lot of time for devs as well to come up with new items or better item tiers (legendary<mithic<hero)

I cant wait for this game to come out and be able to play with the great feedback from all fans around the world!

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308

Stinky Crappy Player’s Cindercoat :slight_smile:

Love it :smiley:

309

I nearly dont have enough of an imagination to believe Blizzard would make an A-RPG where weapons do not have different attack speeds and dmg ranges.
It has to be because the game is just in early development and they haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Right Blizzard?!

Anything else would be embarrassing.

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310

Well, they already tied angelic power to cold resist and demonic to fire resist. Why? Because one is associated with the color blue/white and the other with the color red?

Unless they attune all skills (and talents if such affixes exist) only if there is a power that directly improves it, I think this system will end up limiting build diversity.

If they can do that though, I’m cool with it.

311

One example does not prove that. The tie in for each power with affixs does not mention resistances at all and extrapolating that angelic=cold and demonic=fire from 1 example does not equate to fact.

312

Yeah, like other posters, I think that the resistances should be de-coupled from the angelic/demonic/ancestral system because resists are critical to all characters/builds. I think it may be less troublesome if they are not influenced by that system. For skills/affixes though, i think that it may be a good idea since it adds another layer of min/maxing that can make builds come to life. Really depends on how they handle it.

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313

Awesome ideas! I love this creativity and thinking!

314

I’m pretty sure that they said something to the affect of “we’re only showing attack so that players don’t have as many things to look through when choosing an item”

and they implied that attack speed and stuff were still there, just hidden. If i’m not just having fake memories then i’d say they’ll probably have a setting somewhere for simple vs detailed item descriptions, simple only showing the DPS attack stat and detailed showing it more in depth

315

I’m not even that worried about extra stats being gated by the powers. What worries me is that one of the core skills to my build isn’t affected by any of the three, but to maximize it I have to have that power on multiple pieces to unlock the best affixes. Do all builds for which this skill is important, but not its required power, get shafted?

One case I’d be okay with is if there’s just a skill that’s used by pretty much every build. It gets even better if you stack a specific power stat, and that’s also the one that gates affixes with a bonus to it. Because skills that are just generally useful don’t need to be maximized at all costs. If they did they’d probably fall into OP territory anyway.

316

I’ve been giving the new Angelic/Demonic/Acestral power more thought. Honestly, the more I think about it the more I like it.

To put it simply i think it is a fantastic replacement for the standard Strength/Dex/Int stats. Instead of being a barb just looking for strength gear and things that require it, all stats are potentially useful.

One thing that I do hope gets added, i’m not sure if it is, would be the ability to allocate points into those either through leveling up or some other source. This gives the player more agency, instead of being at the mercy of whatever gear drops.

Again, thanks for the blog post!

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317

I think that they said that all affixes and skills will be categorized into the 3 powers (not 100% sure on this tho).

318

I read info as four weapon sets. Could be two weapons, a weapon and a shield, etc. I did not see anything that said arsenal system was limited to Barbs. Looked like D2 with 4 sets instead of 2.

319

The way I read what Blizz has said is that there will be two basic combat stats. To equip a particular weapon, you will probably need to be at or above the Attack stat level required by that weapon. Same for armor, except at or exceed the Defense stat level required by that piece of armor.
Angelic, Demonic and Ancestral stats will increase the potency of affixes that are Angelic, Demonic and Ancestral and gear could have minimum stat level requirements for Angelic, Demonic or Ancestral.
We will probably get to allocate Angelic, Demonic and Ancestral stats. Attack and Defense may grow just based on experience or we may get to allocate. However, we will probably have to keep Attack in balance if we can allocate so we may not get a chance. A character with zero defense stat won’t survive anything beyond low level combat plus won’t be able to equip anything but entry level armor. Same with Attack stats. How far will a character get if all they can equip is an entry level weapon.
The complexity will come from the allocation of Power’s stats and the progress in skills.

320

Each of the three Powers will have a list of affixes that are attuned to it,

Is that the part you mean? Doesn’t say all of them, just that there’s a fixed list of attuned powers and affixes.

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321

As posted here: "Effect & Focus" - Runes, Power Imbues & Sockets: Mechanic suggestion

I suggest changing the rune mechanic from “Trigger & Effect” to “Effect & Focus”
This will make effects always usable.

While at it, change the “runes” in d4 to be “Jewels” (Or “Charms”).
So we have Effect Jewels and Focus Jewels.

This frees runes to be the Consumable items mentioned in blog post - “consuming” a rune would be etching it to the weapon.

And now runes can also be merged to construct a more complex runes (Like in d2, but actually very different).

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322

That worries me more actually, if those stats are solely tied to those forms of power, then that means you don’t really have much choice between them: you’ll be forced to balance every step of the way.

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323

Thank you guys, Here is what i think, I wrote a thread on it but it was my first post xd, there you go :

I do want to start by thanking the development team for keeping us on loop and wanting us ‘‘fans’’ to be a part of the development of the game. That said I will start with what I think about the early itemization for the game.

1- Crit Change/damage: Having crit chance and crit hit damage create a huge power gap with the other affixes, eg: In Diablo 3 if an amulet or rings don’t have Crit hc/hc for most DPS it would be not good, I haven’t had a different color gem in my weapons from the release of D3. The more you stack it the better.
Suggestions for it: I wouldn’t suggest removing as in D2, but it is possible to:

  • Set a maximum for them , and a maximum that lets other affixes compete with them mathematically like let’s say 10-15 Crit hit chance and a maximum of 100% Crit Hit damage.
  • Make them only mythic item affixes , as you can only equip one of those, this will make getting a mythic item makes you relatively stronger, thus holding up to the ‘‘Mythic item’’.

2- Ancestral, Angelic and Demonic Powers: I think this a very good addition to the game which will give more depth and variety to the Game-play, I would suggest adding:

  • Special buff for stacking one of the powers, let’s say the maximum power you would get from all sources is 120, hybrid builds will have 40 of each or 80 of one and 40 of another. However getting only of these power and stacking to reach 120 would give you a buff different from what having it does, eg:
  • Ancestral power gives more proc on hit chance, at 120 Ancestral power you get +20% magic find buff.
  • Angelic power gives postive buffs, at 120 Angelic powers you get a 5% increased damage.
    -Demonic power gives negative buffs, at 120 Demonic power you get +20 to all resistances.
  • Having hybrid builds of Powers won’t necessarily be less strong as it would be a more flexible build.

3- Gems: I know you haven’t shared any information about this feature, but being a Diablo game am just gonna assume it’s in the game. I think the sound of a Gem dropping in D2 was one of the most stratifying that could happen while playing, said that i think Gems dropped very often in D3, probably lowering the drop chance for them a bit would feel more rewarding. Again we haven’t seen any of it yet but I would like to suggest the following:

Bring back the elements : different elements on gems brings more diversity on Game-play, eg:
- Sapphire: (Wep) +XX% to Chill target and adds X-X cold damage to your attacks/ (Helm) +% Resources Regen/ (Armor) +XX cold resistance/ (Misc) +X% Cold damage.
note: Chilled targets take more damage.
- Topaz: (Wep) +X% Stun chance and adds 1-XX Lightning damage to your attacks/ (Helm) +XX Angelic Power/(Armor) +XX Lightning resistance/ (Misc) +X% Lightning damage.
- Ruby: (Wep) +% chance on kill to burn One close target and adds X-XX Fire damage/(Helm) +XX Demonic Power/(Armor) +XX Fire resistance/ (Misc) +X% Fire damage.
- Amethyst: (Wep) +X% chance on hit to apply a debuff on target for +X% damage taken, stackable 5 times/ (Helm) +% Health/ (Armor) +XX Defense/ (Misc) +% Physical damage.
- Diamond: (Wep) +XX% reduce All resistance to target/ (Helm) +X% Cooldown time reduction/ (Armor) +XX All resistance/ (Misc) +XXX% damage to Undead.
- Emerald: (Wep) +XX poison damage over X.0 seconds and +% to spread to close target/ (Helm) %Fear attackers/ (Armor) +XX Poison resistance/ (Misc) +% Poison damage
- Skull: (Wep) +XX to Life and Resource Leech/ (Helm) +XX Ancestral Power/ (Armor) +XX to Life Regen and +X to Resource Regen/ (Misc): +XX Thorn Damage.

I do think bringing back elements gives more choice to the players and balance out the different gems and it could synergy with the legendary powers or skills.

4- Runes: I think the model that was shown at Blizzcon is good, though I think there could be a compromise to have the Runewords too and I suggest the following.

  • You could Bring back Socketed common items as rare drops or craftable items with them being the only Items eligible for Runewords, which will have determined Affixes on each runewords, making them rival good rare/legendary items. This Will provide more depth to gameplay and more control to the player as he can work towards an item that would be good for his build with less RNG.

5- Jewels & Charms: Also we don’t know even if this 2 features would be in the game, but in case they do make it, I suggest the following:

  • Jewels: Should provide 2 affixes with different effects making them more hybrid.
  • Charms: As I’ve seen pointed by some streamers that there could a different space for Charms as there is for gear and mats. I think the best way is to introduce as the Kanai’s Cube with only having 3 slots for the beginning and unlocking more with future expansions.

6- Overall Damage: Again we don’t have much detail on this yet, but from what we have seen from the demo, Level 20 Items had XXXX of Attack and defense, and as the level 40 being where the endgame this numbers will go high significantly. People Don’t like big numbers and in the same time they don’t like getting nerfed, and as you are planing for future expansions hopefully, the number will keep going up. So i Suggested to squish the number to X-1XX in leveling to 1XX-XXXX on endgame.

Thank you for your work, and I hope this would be helpful.

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324

I already said that I really like the new Stat system. It has the potentiel to be awesome if they refine it.

I hope there will be other ways to invest in these stats in addition to items:

  1. We can place X at each level
  2. There is some (5-6) Key Quest/Key Moment during the campaign that give us some Stats Point to invest depending of the choices we made.

I would also add some treshold point that gives a Flat bonus. If 100 Angelic Power is relatively easy to get but 200 is really hard (I need to invest everything into it + Angelic Power affixes on my gear). I would add up to 4 bonus (They are purely exemple)
50 Angelic Power: 10 life regen/sec
100 Angelic Power: 50 hp
150 Angelic Power: Chance on hit: A wave of light spawn on you, healing your character + damaging enemies.
200 Angelic Power: A new active Skill pretty strong. Full Angelic Power will become a build by itself

Angelic, Demonic and Ancestral Power should have 1-2 more effects (But nothing overpower. Keep the number and bonus % low) So we don’t feel they are meta/build defining and overpower, but contribute slightly in the overall Power level of the character.

I also think, even if we don’t meet the Angelic Power requirement, I think the affix should give a bonus, but with a penalty (Maybe 50% of the bonus). So the affix won’t be totaly useless but you need to think “How am I gonna optimize my gear?” Easy to play/Hard to master!

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325

I agree with that. It could be even lower, for example 5% fire resistance if don’t have enough power and 25% if have the power. Others also suggested to create different levels of the bonus: if you have 0 power give 5% res, if have half give 10%. There could be more divisions too.

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326

Hopefully. Hiding something as important as attack speed would be a bit crazy though. Not exactly going to help people.

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