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

General Discussion
82

I understand, but that was not exactly what the conversation was about.

The conversation was about OP wanting to preemptively nerf all legendaries in D4 to the degree that they only have 2-3 affixes by default, so that rare and magic items can compete with them in every single slot.

D2 and other games solved that issue by having certain slots in which uniques and runewords were extremely powerful (like weapons, off-hand and chest armor), while in most other slots uniques where approximately on the same powerlevel as very well rolled rare or magic items.

83

Sorry for the slight derail (upfront), this is a sub-conversation I’m interested in. So, about the article:

Just this part alone is a proof of “wanna be genius” to talk about things from a “scientific perspective” but makes no sense honestly

Remember when I said every uni– sorry, lamedreary in Diablo 3 was aimed at Spikes? Unfortunately the Spikes don’t want them because they do less damage than the above mentioned dumpster blue. A big fat zero again.

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Verdict

Diablo 3 lamedrearies are aimed at Spike players at the intentional expense of Johnny and Timmy

I mean, can’t be both at the same time. They’re either are in the “GGnoRE” category or aren’t, so which is it ?. Secondly if the guy thinks that D3 Legendaries aren’t “DPS-based” (a blue item does more damage ?) what’s there else to say ???

The real problem of D3 legendaries is EXACTLY because of crazy damage multipliers, and EXACTLY cause every single affix is related to damage and hence the “late game” skyrocketed in billions. i.e. they stayed for too little time as build-alternators and when GRs and “exponential leveling” were introduced everything went to Hell (pun intended ?:P) with it :thinking:

As for the “No Timmy/Johnny” items that’s true but not cause of reasons there aren’t any, but rather as I said they were too-specific. But even then, there are things like this: https://us.diablo3.com/en/item/ancient-parthan-defenders-Unique_Bracer_102_x1

THAT seems like a “Timmy” item to me. There was another one I can’t find (may have been changed) where “Every time you enter or exit a slow time bubble next ability does X% more damage” (something like that can’t remember), the problem with that item was there was not a Proc Chance of ST bubble for non-Wizards, otherwise would’ve been a cool alternative for DH maybe. But then again, why not allow the Barb to use Bows & things… I get it, BUT:

EDIT: Actually here it is

Apparently they swapped the buff to a Set of 6, used to be an Amulet and not have that ridiculous “8500%” multiplier to it :smiley:
‘Shrouded Mask - Game Guide - Diablo III’

Nope, nevermind that’s not it :stuck_out_tongue:

Honestly think sometimes the “elite” goes waay off to “show off” things that aren’t quite true and get caught into “detailing” things with either wrong purpose or wrong conclusion

Just call out a mistake ffs no need to be a “genius” about it, if you’re trying/talking about a thing that isn’t from your “area of expertise” chances are you’ll be wrong about it

Cause again, the article’s full of hypotheses over human nature and even self-controversial to itself at the conclusion ffs

It’s typical for programmers to “categorize” things that aren’t categorizable honestly. It’s easier to “plan” but human nature isn’t “intellectual”, it’s emotional rather, you can’t “solve” emotional needs in an intellectual way, and YET that’s what the article tries to achieve :thinking: :slight_smile:

Oh, and I’m a P2W (Spikes) guy but the way I usually W is re/search for a “cure” against/to the “Meta” everyone’s “headbutting” in. Which category does that put me in ? :slight_smile:

84

Well, the first thing that came to my attention was that the name “Burning Wand of Alacrity” implies that it is a magic item. A magic item wouldn’t have so many affixes and also not these specific ones and certainly not a special affix.

I am not saying this is wrong, I am just saying that this is something that caught my attention.

When I here “Burning Wand of Alacrity”, this is what would think of:

Burning Wand of Alacrity
Major Affixes
° +127-183 Fire Damage
° 14% increased Attack Speed
Bonus Affixes
° 13% increased Gold dropped from enemies

If this thing would be a legendary ring or maybe bracers, I think it would be really interesting because you could create for example a Barbarin build around these skills or maybe a Barbarian build that augments his playstyle with them.

It likely would not be a meta build, but some people will definitely like to experiment and even play such a build, so yeah, I think such a thing as a legendary ring or bracers, or pants would be great, but as a weapon it is a bit underwhelming imo. But again, something like that would be a nice legendary in other slots.

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@Lostariel I will respond to you latest post later, but for now I have some other stuff to do. But I will get back to you soon.

85

Legendaries in D3 Classic were aimed at Spike Players, but they did not satisfy Spike Players. This is what he is trying to say.

He is talking about D3 Classic, not RoS.
The article came out when RoS wasn’t even out.

Not in D3 Classic and not even in the first few month of RoS. That all came later.

Yes, but they were not there in classic.

But I wouldn’t consider the Ancient Parthan Defenders a good example of a Johnny or Timmy item in D3.

The Corrupted Ashbringer is probably the quintessential Johnny item in D3 RoS. Other Johnny items in D3 RoS could be Schäfers Hammer, Skycutter, Thundergod’s Vigor (although it theoretically could also be categorized as a Spike Item if the 20% Lightning damage affix would be BiS for some builds, so there can be overlap between certain categories) and maybe even Ess of Johan.

Timmy and Spike Items are basically the same in RoS. It are all these legendaries with Skill X deals xxx% more damage.

A Timmy Item would be an item, like a weapon that has something BIG on it, while not being BiS for competitive players that do primarily play to win.

A Timmy Item would have something like:
° 10% chance to cast a screenwide Meteor Shower on attack.
° Or a 2% chance to drop a nuke when you kill an enemy.
° Or a 65% Crushing Blow Chance on it as an affix .

86

Ah, that makes sense then lol, ok… Didn’t realize the article was an old one. I mean I suspected it was but thought it was RoS era days :slight_smile:

Ok, I see… I guess you’d think it’s not enough for weapons to be based around “proc-type” damage source. I think it’s quite ok, and not just only legendaries, a “12% chance to spawn lvl2 hydra on hit” is a totally fine for a blue item for me. A rare might have a 5-8% roll but a legendary would be 10-15% chance AND a hydra empower (for example maybe monsters that are killed by the hydras spawned empower their level by 1 for 30 seconds, so therefore you might empower those to be a level 6, level 7, 8, 9 hydras if need be, BUT that would be at a cost of no lifesteal, no mana return, no stun or bash or knockback, JUST hydras :smiley: )

Meteor, raise dead, place totem, cast random curse, cast random shout, cast chain lightning… Basically anything, why not put those things around on Blue items as well ?, that way you empower “playstyle over damage” and must say I’d like to see it happening. Not too too crazy but some “non legendary” items should roll those things :slight_smile:

Ofc. things will have damage but they’ll have either elemental damage or bleed or crushing blow. Not so much around crazy dps multipliers or stackable crits

1 Like
87

You cannot just make different kinds of items for the same item tier
That’s inconsistent

88

I would be okay with procs on magic and rare items as well, as long the more exotic ones are only on legendaries.

Chance to cast Chain Lightning, Sprint, Haste, Ignore Pain, Blizzard Magic Missile, etc, you know, like more generic things are fine imo on magic and rare items, but something like a screenwide Thunderstorm or summoning a Demon Lord or a bunch of Angels that fight for you for xx seconds, turning into a Werebear for x seconds, etc, fit better on legendaries.

I don’t know what you mean by that in this context.

89

Saying that what ever a legendary sword has way more affixes then a legendary ring and also while rare rings and swords got the same amount of affixes, just to force a bis slot for legendaries, hence making all rare swords useless in endgame
Even if D2 did that, it might have to do with sockets and bigger items generally having more affixes, it’s inconsistent

90

Yes, but the alternative is as you suggest to give every legendary a maximum of 3 affixes so rare and magic items can be competitive with legendaries, and trust me, most people will not like this. And furthermore, rare and magic items in many other slots would still be useful.

Think of it this way: what I suggest is like an investment that pays off.
Let’s say that the enjoyment factor of the game for the vast majority of players is 100 (not 100%, but rather 100 as a randomly chosen flat number to help to illustrate the issue).

Now, you take an enjoyment factor of -10 away because rare and magic items would not be competitive with legendaries in the weapon, off-hand and chest armor slot, but you add +30 to the enjoyment factor again, because now you have amazing legendaries in these slots that people like to hunt for, which gives you an enjoyment factor of 120 in the end.

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But rare weapons, off-hands and chest armors do not have to be useless. There could for example be a legendary ring (similar to LoN) or a charm that gives you a bonus when you wear a rare weapon/offhand and chest armor.

And suddenly they would be useful again.

91

i get your point, you really dont have to repeat it with that wall of text, every time

its just that you say, you need those legendaries full of affixes to feel cool
and this post is about what i think would be cool
so after all its about personal preferences
to me, any game mechanic and design has to be consistent and balanced and not make exceptions in order to work
and i dont think that legendaries with 3 affixes would be lame so…yea
just two opinions here

1 Like
92

#some

Yes, indeed, and I am not denying that.

But I also can guarantee you the majority of the playerbase will have an issue with legendaries that just have 2-3 affixes. They might also not like legendaries with 11-12 affixes (although many uniques/runewords in D2 already had so many), but they should have at least 5-7 additional affixes besides the special affix.

93

well, after stating that they will increase the affixes on all items, it could still be balanced around

legendaries and magics with 5
and rares with 10
or something like that

94

It can also be like that legendaries have 7-8 affixes, while rares have 6 and magic have 2, but then there also could be Enchantments like Radmaladnis Gift, that adds +1 random affix to a rare and magic item, but not to legendaries and white items, which can be put on them up to 3 times.

Then your rare item would go from this:
https://imgur.com/hvvBJ3E

To this:
https://imgur.com/78kElMO

I just had these mock ups available.

Mystic Enchantments are just enchantments that you can put on any type of item, white, magic, rare, legendary, but the ‘Consumable Enchantment’ only works on magic and rare items.

You also could make magic items more powerful with a cube recipe that randomly increases the power of their affixes by 30-100% and maybe adds up to two random additional affixes at normal power.

That also would make magic items more competitive.

95

so much weird, complicated stuff instead of just having a balanced itemization xD

96

Plenty of reasons that D3 legendaries aren’t appealing; mostly just because the itemization sucks overall, and there are no meaningful choices.

But as for lack of affixes; D3 legendaries got 5-6 affixes + legendary affix, so that is already a lot more than the two affixes Looli42 is arguing for.
So no, I dont think D3 legendaries has way too few affixes either (although 1-2 more would be good imo).
But the difference between 2 affixes and 5-6 is also quite large.

1 Like
97

That doesnt sound very balanced.

I’d be fine with rares having more affixes than legendaries though. But the legendary consumable would need to remove some of the affixes on rares then, otherwise rares + legendary consumable just become a straight up boost from legendaries.

Rares: 8 affixes (two are removed if “legendarified”)
Legendaries: 6 affixes + legendary affix
Mythic: 2 affixes + 4 legendary affixes (or was it 3, cant remember).

98

You can keep the affixes, just need the legendary one. So instead of launching three fireballs, it only does 2. But yeah if you are going to keep the lege dary power there should e an offset of losing rare affixes. Or else it turns into the same thing all the D2 people complained about D3 legendaries and sets, is that rares will e the new must have items and everything else becomes useless if you can make rates guaranteed the most powerful items.

99

you should probably read the whole OP
i am not talking about a system with legendary consumables here, in the first place
but yea, if a legendary effect will still cover about 3 affixes, it would have to look like
magic, legendary: 7
rare: 10
which is too much in my opinion but you get the idea: balance

100

Why does it has to or should be like that? A special affix can also be of ~0.75 times or 1 time or 1.25 times the power of a regular affix and there is nothing wrong with that.

In D2 there was for example the gloves and the boots slot and uniques and rares often had about the same amount of affixes and it was often the case in these slots that rare/magic and uniques were competing for the BiS.

You could find rare boots with tri-elemental resistance, FRW, magic find and iirc +xx life or FHR on them, which was really, really good, and they were competing with Gorerider, Goblin Toe, War Traveler, Waterwalk, and maybe also Aldur’s Advance.

You could add a small special affix to them that is like 0.5-1.0 of the power of a normal affix (and eventually take one of their affixes away if it has to be) and the rare item could still compete.

101

It’s what David Kim said and if you ask me
When the legendary power is too weak, it doesn’t feel special and relevant anymore and items will rather be picket for their affixes