[D4 Itemization] the more, the merrier? not always

General Discussion
22

Right, but how is it more efficient?
If the hydras spawn inconsistently, then 20% attack speed, +50 HP and 15 Frost Resistance might actually be better and the Hydra spawn will in the end just considered a gimmick.

You know, interesting is not equal to awesome or even useful, and “awesome!” is the feeling you should get when you find certain legendaries (certainly not every single legendary, but some).

But why should anyone do that if magic and rares are on the exact same powerlevel as legendaries? Why should I prefer an inconsistent chance for a proc over a constant and reliable source of damage and defense?

It also gets rid of the whole idea of progression. You find a good magic item (which are fairly common) and then every item you find afterwards is not an upgrade at all, since it is on the exact same powerlevel.

Someone who build his char in the endgame for 6 hours will be as powerful as someone who played his char in the endgame for 300 hours (in regards to itemization), regardless how many legendaries he has.

This is neither interesting nor awesome.

23

you didnt quite understand the idea i guess
first: it was an example for you to explain why it isnt “boring” and most people tend to look for higher rarities
i didnt even know about magics being able to roll higher in D2
i always looked for yellow
thats what people do

the other thing is: magics probably have the hardest time to actually roll BiS, since the stat value can differ, rares have to roll the 5 perfect stats and have a high chance to roll BS while legendaries will always have their legendary effect and a lower chance to roll BS stats because it would be less stats

you are seeing this as a “everything is even, i can not feel epic, this is bad”
but it was already a thing with people not noticing (like me) and always feeling epic when getting a higher rarity item

but the endgame should simply offer a higher variety of possible items but just legendary, legendary, legendary

and weird adaptions like “you want blue shoes, yellow rings and orange swords” just feels off
an item system has to work as a whole and offer variety without restricting people or boring them

24

Even if you want to make rares and legendaries equal, legendaries should still have way more than 2 affixes. The boring part is not balance between rares and legs, the boring part is a lack of affixes, which leads to a lack of interesting build interactions between gear and skills.

So if the goal was to create more balanced rares and legs, I guess it could be:

Rares: 8-9 affixes - but if legendary consumable is applied, you have to pick 2 affixes that will be removed (or if you want to be evil/more grindy; make it random)
Orange: 6-7 affixes + legendary affix

25

i dont get your affinity for ridiculously high numbers xD
when you can have all affixes of the whole game in your character, there isnt a realy choice anymore xD
but ofc you could tune them up and blizz has already planed that
my point here is just that giving every item everything just makes it bland again in the end

26

You shouldn’t be able to have all affixes. Not even close to it.
But I agree, that yeah, being able to get too many affixes would remove choices (kinda similar to having too many skills etc.). But the solution there is to have lots of affixes, which the game should have regardless.

Grim Dawn has a ton of affixes on items - like 11 on the purple item here, you could even more through crafting/enchanting. There are still plenty of choices on what to focus on.

Some green items are also among the best items you can get in that game, due to high max values.

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27

i actually think that as a dev, you should be able to find a balance between variation and chaos^^
you will scare off a big part of your audience if you put tooo much on your stuff
thats what PoE is doing with skills, crafting, etc. and that can also happen with item affixes
not just the filthy casuals

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28

It’s not just about scare, it’s “time to read” as well

And, often variation can mean redundancy also. What’s the “guarantee” that there isn’t redundancy (or it’s minimal) in such a content lol

The practise has shown that best are the between 3 and 5 choices. 3 is the ideal number to have to choose at a time, but as time progresses and expansions happen 5 options at a time is just fine

That’s why I like the ADA system of 3 affixes to spec into at a time, hope the skill/effect system works just the same or at least similar though :smiley:

29

Since you are not choosing between the affixes on an item, that shouldn’t mean an item should only have 3-5 affixes at least.
In the end, when comparing items, you are comparing them 1 to 1. Two choices.

Even D3 has 6 affixes on items, and it is not exactly a mindblowingly difficult game to figure out.
2 affixes would be a joke.

You can help players with calculations that try to determine “overall” value of an item, in terms of dps, defense etc. Diablo 3s attempt to do that is fine. Though players of course have to understand that those calculations are only a guidance, and not hard fact.

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30

I’m not talking about items specifically but general guideline, but either way would you like to have items like this:

Burning wand of alacrity:
+50 Mana
+10 to Fire Resistance
+1 to Magic Missile
+1 to Magic Armor
+1 to Ice Bolt
+1 to Lightning spear
+1 to Fireball
+1 to Mirror Image
+1 to Hydra
+1 to Meteor
+1 cast range to Fire Skills

  • Basic attacking opponents increase cast rate and Spell damage by 5%. This effect is reset out of combat for 3 seconds or casting 3 spells in a row

Or something like this:

Burning wand of alacrity:
+50 to Mana
+40 to Fire Resistance
+3 to Mirror Image
+2 to Meteor
+1 cast range to Fire Skills

  • Basic attacking opponents increase cast rate and Spell damage by 5%. This effect is reset out of combat for 3 seconds or casting 3 spells in a row

Now it’s hard to imagine it exactly but compare 2-3 items of first of the kind and you’re just sitting there and “comparing” what you gain/lose lol. Affixes don’t just mean “whatever”, they’d have to belong to the same “category” comparable for you to understand the point

In the example above in the picture there’s a wall of text just below how skills get affected by that single item. But again, if you have more than 3-5 things of a same kind on one place things get messy for sure

Nevermind the “legendary/special” affix at the bottom or the +50 to mana thingy, just imagine that “row of text” just affecting your skills and none of them is something particular you’d rather look for

As said - just “piling stuff” isn’t a solution. The chance for REDUNDANCY is super high and also things may just lose something that might be called: identity of purpose

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31

I agree with “not always”. I don’t think every legendary/unique item should fit one recipe. If it has a very powerful unique stat, then it doesn’t need the same stat density of a rare item. I think its also fine to have some legendary items that are legendary just because of stat density… no particularly unique affix… maybe a stat that doesn’t normally spawn on that item slot, or a higher value than normal. Its important they don’t have random affixes… they shouldn’t look like magic or rares… they should be good, unique, niche and need magic and rares to compliment them and to fill in the gaps they don’t fill.

Regarding magic and rare items, I think Diablo 2 did fairly well. There is generally a progression from magic to rare items. Rares have more stats overall but some high value affixes have the highest tier restricted to magic like +3 skill tree. Then there is the statistics of getting all 6 high rolls compared to 2 high rolls. I think that will give use to each tier, magic, rare and unique.

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32

Yes, but not everyone is like that.

Games like Diablo attract various kinds of players who play the game for various reasons and the game has to cater to all of them in order to be successful.

In a very simplified way you could say that there are e.g.:

  • the casuals, who play for fun and use whatever they want, even if it is totally inefficient
  • the pro-players, the competitive players, who play to win and always and only use the best items
  • those that play primarily for self-expression
  • those that like BIG stuff
  • those that fall somewhere between these categories,
  • etc

So just because you were at least a bit of a casual in that regards does not mean that everyone will just want to go magic → rare → legendary just because it is a higher tier.

We are talking here about BiS gear, so yes, BiS magic items obviously had a much lower chance to drop than magic items that were just above average…

… but so it was with legendaries as well. There were some legendaries that where amazingly powerful, but for the most part these were very, very rare. Same for many runewords which required runes that were very rare, while other legendaries and runewords were more mediocre.

The vast majority of legendaries should not even have random stats. It just makes them feel less legendary, or unique.

Again, I suggested that in most slots legendaries, magic and rare items should compete for the BiS slot, while only in a few other slots, legendaries would be the best, and in others rare and magic would be the best.

You see, this may be only a small difference, but a very, very significnat one.

Yes, a very specific type of players did not care much about that, but that does not mean that everyone falls into that category.

I agree, but not everything has to be equal in every slot. In some, yes, but not in every singe slot…

Well, it actually would be more like:

“For a weapon you want a legendary or a RW, for pants you wanna have a magic or a rare, and for all the other slots you can pick whatever you prefer…”

in a very simplified way of course.

And it has been like that in D2 and Median XL and other games as well.

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33

it just doesnt catch me xD
its like, a good system that we both agree on
and then some random weirdo stuff that restricts people for no reason xD

i also dont understand for what reason you are answering to my quotes xD

i said that because you said:

people DO feel epic
and other players do the math
and players who do the math, want a high pool of items to compare
white, blue, yellow…not just orange and green

thats what i said^^

you are pleasing the casuals with rare colors and you are pleasing the nerds with a bunch of rarity types that all compete

there is no reason to say that in some slots, a certain item will be BiS besides, reducing the math for the nerds and reducing the epic feeling for the casuals when they find out that the blue shoes are actually way stronger than the orange ones. there is not a single reason to delete the item competition for certain slots^^

34

To be honest, neither.

To stay with your example, I would rather want to have something like this.

[Legendary Wand Name Placeholder]
Legendary Power like: x% chance to cast a random Sorcerer Spell on attack
+50 Mana
+10 to Fire Resistance
+4 to Magic Missile
+3 to Magic Armor
+2 to Ice Bolt
+4 to Lightning spear
+5 to Fireball
+4 to Mirror Image
+4 to Hydra
+3 to Meteor
+2 cast range to Fire Skills

What I want to express is that the non-special affixes do not have to be “meh” or insignificant, but they also can be as powerful as on a rare (if we assume that e.g. +5 to a skill would not be as OP as it would be in D2).

If we would say that for weapons RW’s and legenadries are BiS items for this slot, then such a legendary would be fairly viable, although it would probably look more like this:

[Endgame Legendary Wand Name Placeholder]
° After you have spend 350 Mana, cast a random Sorcerer Spell on attack
° If you have at least +10 to all skills, gain 20% increased spell damage
° gain 15% of your Arcane Resistance as additional Mana
° +3 to all Sorcerer Skills
° 12% increased Spell Damage
° 16% increased damage against Elites
° 14% increased Area of Effect
° pierces through 13% of enemies resistances
° +310 Arcane Resistance
° +265 to all Elemental Resistances
° 17% reduced damage taken from Ranged Attacks

Most Legendaries should not even have random affixes.
In D2, 90%+ of all Uniques (D2’s legendaries) did not even have a single random affix.
So there wouldn’t be a “chance” of redundancy and most uniques did not just only have a single thing on them that made them desireable (although some had), but several, and many of these where actually just normal affixes.

35

But in these slots there still is competition. Just not between legendaries, magic and rares, but between various different legendaries.

You are not just pleasing people with these things, but also with things that are BIG. There are people who want big stuff, and in general people like big stuff and (big) explosions.

Laz explains this really good in one of his articles he wrote on D3’s item system:

If you ask a professional game designer (a guy who can use the word “conveyance” to describe progression) he will claim there are three types of players.

The Spike – Plays to win, no matter what it takes or how boring the path to victory may be. This is the guy who is perfectly fine with the fact that his D3 wizard wields an axe and his D2 sorc wears a green potato bag on her head. This is the dickwad who picks Tryndamere in 3v3 blind pick and after banging your *** for 20 minutes goes GG EASY NOOOBS in all chat.

The Johnny – Sees games as a means of self-expression. This is the guy who builds a Molten Boulder druid, intentionally wears tier 2 paladin gear in WoW when not actively fighting and picks Orianna. Usually he gets trampled by Spike but sometimes it works and then he feels great.

The Timmy – Likes big stuff. Uses the rocket launcher because it makes big explosions. Goes all offense in every build because it makes big damage numbers. Picks Garen and screams DEMACIAAA every time he spins2win from the bush. Plays for fun where fun is defined as smashing stuff but is not willing to get bored out of his skull to maximise his success rate.

https://www.diabloii.net/blog/comments/brother-laz-explains-whats-wrong-with-diablo-iiis-legendaries

Timmy, Johnny and Spike refers to a concept of classifying various types of players, that a designer/creator of MTG came up with after he noticed these kinds of players playing the games:
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-2013-12-03

As I said, there still would be math to be solved, just not between legendaries, rare and magic items, but between various, even bigger legendaries. Or between various rares and magic items…

If you do not do that, you are throwing people a bone with no meat on it as a legendary for every single slot and I guarantee you that not just the players that in general play these games because they like BIG stuff will not like it, but the vast majority of the community will feel like 2 affix legendaries are not satisfying, not saturating enough.

So yes, it might reduce the math for one of the group who likes math a bit, but probably even the majority of this group would get much more satisfation out of the game in return if there would be more chunky legendaries for some slots.

Like, you subtract 15 from 100, but that makes you able to add 35 in return, and you will end up with a bigger amount than before.

36

Ok, here’s another one of similar kind:

Now which would you choose ?, can you imagine the popups of those ?

WHY would you empower such a bad practise ?, what’s a person gonna do, read all day to understand they lose Fire res in return for Lightning res, lose mana and gain Teleport but lose some early spells power in return for slightly higher hydra level ?

Items (Especially legendaries/uniques) are designed with a purpose and identity, they’re not designed to be a “sudoku” puzzle. There’s no point to have someone read a “holy script” to understand what the change would be lol.

The KEY is to make items have a reason to be used. NOT to lose the player in reading a script though

It’s fine to have not a whole screen for things, AS LONG AS there’s a specific purpose (and win/loss) to those

37

big stuff is a completely different topic here and diablo should definitely try to reduce this aspect^^
that, we all agree on

and about the math stuff
well yea, you can reduce the competition and make a whole bunch of overpowered blue shoes, while other blue weapons arent as great as totally overpowered orange weapons
but that just has a taste of “look we have variety, you will not wear the same rarity type on every slot”
yea, becuase you forced it, good job^^

38

Well, definitely not like that.
No matter which itemization they end up with, there probably have to be some behind the scene rules on which affixes can spawn. Like “max 2 skill affixes on a rare item”, and maybe even some categorization of affixes, so a rare item always spawn with some offensive and some defensive affixes etc.

But I dont see why it would be such a struggle to figure out an item like this:
+50 Mana
+10 to Fire Resistance
+100 life on kill
+5% chance on hit to apply “Fire weakness” on enemy
+1 to Fireball
+1 to Magic Armor
+1 cast range to Fire Skills

Some rare items will of course be a mess of stats. That is hardly a problem. That is what random affixes do. While others will have great purpose, by spawning with affixes that complements each other.
As for legendaries, it comes down to the ones designing them, to give them an identity. Which would still not be particularly difficult. Like the example above clearly got a Fire theme going.

It is not a bad thing if A-RPGs have depth, and if takes a little time (and even testing) to figure out the worth of an item.

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39

theres just a thin line between depth and spaming for the sake of “more” xD
although i like a lot of different stats. just not the ability to have too many at the same time. the less you can choose from a large pool, the more you will think about what you actually need :wink:

40

No need to make players stupid. Of course they can manage to read a tooltip for 10 seconds.

2 affixes on items would be an immense “dumbing down” of items, compared to both Diablo 2 AND Diablo 3.

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41

its not dumbing at all to have fewer stats to choose
its dumbing down to have fewer stats to choose from
like: mainstat xD