Nothing wrong with an armory system.
Another Diablo 4 Idea:
Bonus Class at launch: Diablo 4 launching with 5 Classes, but what if there were a 6th Class available at launch that is locked and can only be unlocked byâŚ
a: doing something like completing Story Mode with all five Classes first,
b: or have the 6th Class be a hidden secret that doesnât show up as locked in the Character Select screen and you have to discover it like any other secret in the game like maybe collect and combine items with Cube to unlock the Secret Playable Class.
c: or since there will be multiple expansions, could have the 5th Class as this Bonus Class.
Locking a class is not a good idea, people should play what class they like and fits them.
There are already âlockedâ items that may never drop to you, unnecessary frustration.
Just add a 6th class. No point in doing anything like that. Iâd rather see classes add as DLC in between expansions and/or just come with me expansions. Depending on how many classes they want to have.
2 Likes
Thereâs no need for a cap on that. I suppose weâll have more than 20 classes by 2026 since they could easily push 3 new per year.
Well, there is a game quality cap on amount of classes. Too many classes either makes them too similar, or each one too narrow.
Blizzard seems to have realized that with WoW, and there they even have the benefit of having holy trinity class design, which increases the amount of different designs you can make.
Often a better way to add more build diversity is to add new skills/talents etc. to the existing classes.
Though both should happen.
Iâd be really skeptical about Blizzards design choices if they go much beyond 10 classes in the lifetime of Diablo 4.
One other way they could go is sub-classes or whatever you want to call it. Having to choose a specialization for your class at some point, opening up for some additional stuff. Like PoE, and many CRPGs do it.
I dont think it is necessarily a good idea, as it also risks narrowing the build options too much, for some of the same reasons that too many classes might. Or the same reasons that the concept of âUltimate skillsâ can narrow class design way too much. You place everyone into tiny niches. When A-RPG classes should be broad. Such as allowing builds like ranged barb, melee sorc etc.
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Having similarity between classes isnât bad per se. After all all classes boil down to 3 major paths - melee, ranged, caster. You can then mix these three in all possible combos and I donât see nothing wrong with that as long as the class fantasy is valid.
Having duplicate skills (taunt on both barb and bard for example) should not stop the development of new classes. Most players arenât dedicated (aka looking at all the skills/talents before choosing a class) and choose a class mainly based on the fantasy and personal preference thus having more classes in the game would heavily boost the profits.
As far as I remember one of the D4 devs mentioned they want to have shared skills among all classes from items (like the D2 teleport from Enigma). I personally think this should be avoided. More classes is the way to go (give teleport to wizard, monk, illusionist, etc).
The only problems that may arise are related to balancing for group play, but that again depends on how they structure group play at all. I donât like the D2/D3 multiplayer skill sharing philosophy.
its simply wasted resources probably
if they are too similar, people will probably not be so eager to buy them and the development time will not be worth it
The class fantasies will also become similar if you have too many classes.
You can only have so many unique spell casters, melee warriors etc.
In general it seems better to have 1 sorc with 60 different spells to choose from, than 2 sorc variations with 30 skills each.
If taken to an extreme, that leads to zero-class design of course, as with most things, it is a balance act between creating class identities, and allowing us to create diverse builds within a class.
The other end of that spectrum is MOBA âclassesâ where each character has like 4 skills.
Not a fan of that either. At least not when it is stuff like Enigma. Takes away the class fantasy.
Smaller skills from items Grim Dawn style can be fine.
If each class has 32 skills for example, even if every class shares 8 skills with some of the other classes, as long as a single class doesnât share more than one skill with another, the fantasies wonât blur.
I can make an analogy with football - although Messi and Ronaldo share great striking, free kick execution and dribbling skills, they have enough other differences to not look similar while you watch them.
I was kind of thinking like a Build-a-Figure type thing where each of the five classes could find one piece of a doll that, when combined, becomes a playable character that isnât a Nephalem. Then when/if they release Action Figures for Diablo 4, people could build that character if they buy all five Nephalem figures, lol.
Update: If not a Nephalem, this character could be made with weaker skill damage, making the game more difficult for players. then imagine playing as this weaker character in hardcore mode. (*secret character that wonât be in the character select screen if you havenât unlocked it yet. So you wonât even know about it until someone discovers it and posts it online like any other secret in the game)
I hope this is the right place for general feedback. I was watching some Diablo 4 gameplay and while I love that the game is going back to a darker place from Diablo 3, I donât think its quite far enough there.
I would love the option to turn off whatever is making enemies glow and be highlighted when you attack them. I understand that this is a player feedback feature, designed to make it more clear who you are attacking. To me though, who will likely play the game on a relatively easy setting and just enjoy the story and atmosphere, I would rather not have that glow.
The less bloom and glow, the better, in my opinion. Making it an option would be the best thing. Let players choose. You really canât go wrong giving the players more options. I canât think of a time when a game came out with a ton of visual options in the menus and was received poorly because of it.
6 Likes
While I like visually being able to tell who Iâm attacking, I liked your post for this part right here.
I feel like most game devs think less options are somehow better for players and it annoys me to no end. The more they let players fine tune their experience, the better imo.
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a diablo mmo when they have wow already means they split the mmo community and push away the arpg communityâŚ
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This has probably been discussed to death, but I just want to reiterate something I think is severely important.
legendary items should be unique. Having them be basically rare items with a legendary stat on them, and having those legendary stats drop as consumables to use on rares, makes the legendary not unique at all.
When i get a Stone of Jordan (or any other awesome unique) to drop, I should be really excited that I found that hard-to-find item and soak it in, in all itâs glory. They have unique names, unique artwork, and should have a unique stat set as well, otherwise they are going to be forgettable and probably be used much much less than rare items.
I am all for rare items being viable in their own way (just as they were in Diablo II), but to make legendary items be defined by just one legendary stat, really detracts from the fun of finding and using them. The other stats on them should not all be totally random. There at least needs to be some predefined stats in addition to the legendary stat. For instance, a legendary helmet that doesnât do anything crazy unique, but is special because it is the only helmet that offers both critical strike chance and run walk speed, or something like that.
4 Likes
I both like the legendary consumable and have some issues with it.
First, I like that the legendary consumable basically means you can make your own randomized legendaries (whereas legendaries themselves should have fixed affixes, to reduce RNG Hellâ˘).
That to me is the best of both worlds. The pre-designed items that you can rely on without stupid RNG. And the randomized ârare-legendariesâ that you can finetune for some narrow builds.
But, I agree, that legendaries, to set them further apart, should, at least some times, have special affixes, beyond the legendary affix itself. Which you would not get from the legendary consumable.
It could be having a normal affix, that is usually not available in this item slot. Like, lets say, a belt with crit chance. Or simply having a higher value of an affix than what you can normally get.
Or having completely unique affixes for the legendary. Like maybe a legendary has a legendary affix that heals you a little bit every time you block with a shield. Which could be applied to another shield with the legendary consumable. But the legendary might also have a special affix that gave you 100 HP for each % block you had, or whatever. Essentially, the legendary would have two legendary affixes, but only the main affix would be transferable. So you would have to make that choice between getting the special affix, vs. getting more control over the affixes through a rare item.
The goal should really be, that both legendary and rare-legendary have similar power, but for different builds.
That could exist too, and in those cases, you then, imo, wouldnât be able to get a legendary consumable based on that item. Since it had no legendary affix.
Another thing, rares without legendary consumable affix, should also be able to stand on their own.
So how about two consumables:
- The one that adds a legendary affix
- One that adds 2 additional normal, random, affixes.
You can only use one of them of course.
Btw, I dont know if it is the case, but if some people have an issue specifically with the concept of making a rare item have a legendary affix, would it make any difference if the process was turned around. As in, you applied the random affixes of a rare item, unto a legendary item (overwriting all its affixes except the legendary affix). The end result would be identical of course. Iâm curious if people would feel different about it though. The main difference would be that you still had to find the legendary item first. And the rare item. So the potion itself would likely be a generic âtransferâ consumable. Unlike the current concept, where you presumably need a rare item, and a legendary consumable only.
Edit; and it would mean you would end up still using the actual legendary item, with its special art etc.
Could be a decent solution?
An alternative could be that the legendary consumable used on rares simply changed the look, art and name of the rare into the legendary. Essentially making it the legendary, just with the normal affixes from the rare. Many ways to get to the same end result here.
I like some of your ideas for sure. I think potentially having rare affix modifiers and legendary affix modifiers is a fine idea and brings in a sense of interesting crafting, not too different from Path of Exileâs orbs. I also agree that when the legendary item has no legendary affix and just has cool stats that are unique to that item (such as run walk on a helmet), there should not be a legendary consumable for that. I think to boil down what you said and what I might want/be okay with would be a system that is basically this.
Legendary items are unique. Not random stats (or at least very few random stats).
meaning if I get a Stone of Jordan, it should always have:
+1 to all skills
+20 mana
+5% mana steal
+10 to all resistances
It should not just be +1 to all skills and three random attributes. Then it just feels like a rare ring that had the legendary stat built into it. It is not actually special or unique as itâs name and artwork would suggest.
But you can still have the legendary consumables, and maybe even extra rare double affix consumables as well, like you said, and you have to choose one to use on the rare, not both. I almost think it would be best to have legendary components be slightly weaker versions of the legendary affix on the actual legendary item.
So if you have a legendary item such as Frostburn Gauntlets, and itâs legendary affix is something like â+30% mana regenerationâ, the legendary component that you could find would be something like, âEssence of Frostburn: +20% mana regenerationâ.
2 Likes
I agree with you guys just one unique stats for legendary is not enough to set apart from a good rare item.
Here is my ideea:
-
unique concept art for every Legendary but can only see after you identifie it just like in D2 and D3
-
unique power that no rare item can have,
this is the whole point of unique, maybe similar to other uniques but not identical -
3 base stats that are always rolling on it but unlike rare items they have abnormal values, lets say rare items can have 5-30 to strenght while unique go 100-200
-
2 more random stats could be normal or high value
No 2 uniques should be the same but when it drops you know what you should expect from it, the value range of stats could make the difference between a good Legendary and a extraordinary one.
That would be bad imo. No way rares could ever compete with that.
Iâd say more like:
Legendary item:
- Legendary affix: Chance on crit to set enemy on fire dealing 200 dmg/s for 3 sec
- 6% crit chance - more than what you can normally get on this item type
- 10% fire dmg
- +1 fire skills
- 10% cold resist
- 3 base resource regen per second
Rare item:
- 4% crit chance - less than what you can get on the legendary
- 10% fire dmg
- +1 fire skills
- 10% cold resist
- 3 base resource regen per second (OR maybe 5% CDR OR maybe 5% attack speed)
So, even with a Legencary consumable item in the game, allowing you to combine the rare item with this legendary affix, the legendary would offer something special, beside the legendary affix itself. Some extra crit chance, which happens to synergize with the legendary affix.
However, some builds might want to take that crit chance loss, in exchange of being able to replace, lets say, the resource regen affix with a cooldown reduction affix or whatever, because their build is not in need of resource regen.
(yes, keeping the affixes simple on purpose)
That could certainly work in some cases (like in my example above, the fire dot could become 150/s instead). However, not all legendary affixes might have numbers you can adjust.
so, a 100% vertical progression where the rare item will always be worse
1 Like