Yes many are idiots who preorder or buy p2w crap but it doesn’t make it okay for company to fool their customers. There are consumer protection offices for a reason. Jay Wilson said lately that they had trouble removing Auction House from D3 because it was advertised on the box.
www.gamespot.com/articles/diablo-3-controversial-auction-house-would-have-been-removed-faster-if-not-for-legal-concerns/1100-6508613/
Well their not all idiots, they just have the luxury not to care. But again it’s not the companies fault that people can’t wait, and will complain that the fire is hot.
That’s a bummer because I find sets to be a very fun part of the loot hunt and character building. I know people like important or valuable rares and blues, but I find them very boring. Collecting sets and getting their bonuses are a big part of the fun for me.
Sets are better than runewords. Id like to see them never add runewords back into the series.
Hopefully they’ll never add it to the game. Terrible d3-like concept.
Let’s also hope they will not be like how they are in D2 either. Overshadowing 99% of the items.
D2 runewords should not return. They were just bad in pretty much all regards. Imbalanced, deterministic, boring.
D4 runewords seemed like one of the most interesting ideas the series have had in decades.
The idea was too simplistic, but the potential was there.
Only problem is that they never said there will be set items in Diablo 4.
They did say it actually. They were supposed to stepping stones toward endgame items. Which was just a weird idea all around.
Where? When? Give me source please.
Itemization
It’s not a Diablo game without tons of new loot to find, and we want to share a broad, top-down approach to our itemization. First, you’ll see the familiar return of most item categories:
Normal → Magic → Rare → Legendary/Set → Ancient → Mythic
In Diablo IV, we want Legendaries to be just as, if not more, powerful than Set items. We don’t want you to feel beholden to one particular class set to play your chosen style. Ancient items are a system we’ll be leveraging for Seasons, but we’ll dig into that at a later date. As for Mythic items, these will be so powerful you’ll only be able to equip one of them at a time, so choose wisely!
Taken from:
That said, it was about the only time they made a reference to set items for D4 (or at least that I can think of atm), and afterwards the itemization went through numerous changes.
Not going to look through 4 years of interviews etc.
But here they are mentioned in a blog post.
As well as during Blizzcon
Thank god they got rid of the above. Just a shame they replaced it with a copy of it…
Ok. You are right. But I don’t care how item type is called and if there are set items in Diablo 4.
Important thing is that in Diablo 4 there is no item type similar to what we have in Diablo 3 now. As far as I know.
In Diablo 3 there are too many items that you “must” use. And with sets you want to have power from 6 items. It is just too many item slots.
Set item type in Diablo 3 could be also called IGiveYouAllPowerAndYouMustUseMeBecauseOfHowIAmDesigned_Item_Type.
Yeah everyone hopes the D3 sets will not get repeated.
Sounds good to me… i just hope that runewords find their way in at the right time. I can’t say nothing else at the moment really as i need to play the game before i judge.
Agree.
As well as gems and sockets, which are essentially feature over feature just because slots are limited and specialized, which artificially restricts the number of combinations.
I have a proposal to get rid of all those bad designs :
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d3/t/d4-proposal-2-pouch-bag-omni-stash-relics-skills-dps/55199
Look at the Relics proposals in the post, on the right.
Basically it extends the Warcraft 3 Inventory (any item any slot) with lots of slots, so many combinations are possible.
I’m not saying it is flawless, but it feels more flexible than limited and specialized slots, or even sockets that are just a poultice on a wooden leg.
I’ll exclude the rune that is just a delivery system for the feature, and concentrate on the feature they were suppose to bring.
In the early presentation of D4, Blizzard was working around the idea of programming, with conditions triggering effects.
I still like this idea, but finding the proper medium to deliver the feature as a payload is hard.
If you want to chain multiple conditions and create complex programs, the item is not the place where you want to manipulate this feature.
It would require a dedicated interface, a big scrollable screen like the one exposed for the skills tree, and the size should be dynamic, as players will create conditions, effects, use AND / OR nodes and create subprograms (parenthesis).
It can become quite complex very quickly.
But for sure this is an idea to dig in.
Yes !
From my perspective, avoiding sets and runes for D4 is a very brave and courageous move. 
Sometimes, “Tabula rasa” is a necessary shift to make the game evolve.
Yeah, I am more interested in the condition → effect than it being tied to runes or something you add into sockets on items.
I do think making it something you add to a socket makes sense. There has to be limits to how many conditions and effects (and imo, add a third type; power, to the mix) you can add together of course. So whether it is 3 slots on an item or 3 slots in some separate interface is pretty much the same result.
That said, tying it to items can have one single benefit vs. the separate UI solution.
It can be used as an additional tool for balancing different items.
Like, if rares could have more sockets than legendaries/uniques, then it might help rare items to compete better.
I could see a solution where the sockets are not directly tied to individual items, but rather to the item slot. While still affected by the item rarity you have equipped.
This way it can also have its own UI interface.
Sounds like that is the direction PoE 2.0 is going too.
For example:
The chest armor slot can have up to 4 sockets. If you have a rare item equipped, all 4 sockets are available. If you change to another rare item, these sockets stay available, so you dont have to move runes around each time you switch items (the benefit of it being a separate interface).
However, if you equip a legendary chest armor, the 4th socket is made inactive.
And if you equip a unique chest armor, maybe the 3th and 4th socket is made inactive.
This could offer the balancing tool of item sockets, while getting the quality of life benefits that a separate interface offers.
As for these triggers and effects being stuff that drops, such as runes, the big benefit here, is to offer more stuff to get in the loot hunt. If it is just a system that fully unlocks at lvl 50 or whatever, you dont get that.
Could be a bit of both of course. The “runes” (or whatever they might be called) are drops, but the number of max sockets in different item slots, and new types of rune conditions and effects, unlock as you gain lvls.
Likewise, you could have ties to the paragon system, where some nodes interact with the runes. Such as “increased trigger % chances”, “lower internal cooldowns on triggers”
(where applicable of course) etc.
This is pretty much the design that Path of Exile 2 showcased in this video, 3 years ago:
https://youtu.be/dBHgwggiWjQ?t=3
But this is still too limited.
I’m speaking of creating a program, with lots of complex conditions and effects, which will require greater numbers, like 50 to 100 slots at least.
Yeah. I wouldnt be a fan of that. As much as I think D4 both have too few skill slots, and too few item slots, ‘more is better’ does not stay true forever after.
Having 100 skill slots, or 100 item slots devalues each individual slot.
Having 100 triggers and effects devalues each of these too. Likely also creating a mess of effect spam that would make even D3 envious.
Imo going above a total of 4 triggers and effects working together would get into that territory.
If a Power rune was added as an alternative to adding more triggers/effects (choosing between more vs. stronger) then maybe it could go a bit higher.
Something like
Runeword 1: Up to 4 slots (could be tied to the chest armor, with rare chets giving 4 slots, legendary 3 slots, and uniques 1 slot)
Runeword 2: Up to 3 slots (could be tied to main hand weapon, with rare items giving 3 slots, legendary and unique giving 2 slots)
Runeword 3: 2 slots (could be tied to helmet - 2 slots regardless of item quality)
would be fine with me.
Maybe one more:
Runeword 4: Up to 3 slots, with each ring and amulet adding one slot, if they were Rare items. Could be a good incentive for using rare quality jewelry.
Imagine this
When ( HealthLowerThan50% AND ( Stunned OR Frozen ) ) {
IncreaseArmor20%
DrinkHealthPotion
CastRainOfVengeance // to break free from CC
}
When ( PotionDrank ) {
GainRandomShrineFor5s
}
While ( Shapeshifted ) {
Reduce1CooldownBy1sOnHit
}
A soon as you add OR, AND, Parenthesis, multiple conditions, multiple effects, subprograms, …etc. you need lots of space.
This is the price to pay for customization.