In D2 crafting the perfect gear was more exciting then finding the best item. I remember collecting those runes, then making higher level of those runes and they were rare, dropping from different spots and at the end using those runes to craft the gear with the perfect stats you needed.
Most exciting thing in D3 for me was collecting the materials to craft the staff for the pony level where you can go and find the rainbow potrait.
Everything else is just stupid random luck to get the good stats on the gear.
For example i had Ancient GoD Shoulders with dex, vit, area and cooldown and litterally 3 months i was spending shards in Kadala on Shoulders, just in the end to get the Primal GoD Shoulders with WORSE POSSIBLE STATS, dex, life per second, resource cost and resistence i think. In the meantime i got twice primal shoulders from any other set on legendary item for Demon Hunter.
If i play alone i get sleepy fast grinding bounties or rifts. That is how boring D3 is.
It depends on which stage you are in. When you are full decked out, obviously loot are boring.
When gearing up & a rare build define piece drop, it still exiting like haunted vision, Kysbin, or a good ancient weapon for your build.
If you play LoD build, gearing is even more exciting. I still haven’t got an ancient Aquila (let alone a good one) & will be excited to find a good one for my LoD twister.
As a big ARPG fan, if you think D3 loot are bad, try last epoch or wolcen. All the legs/unique I found are useless. In PoE, the good uniques you need for your build you probably wouldn’t find, & what you do is just mostly collect the ones that can sell for a few currency to gather enough to buy the ones you want. That was fun.
I remember I create a world beater /beat all content) char, then realised every single piece on my char were traded. This is just wrong.
Loot has been a challenging issue for every loot base games. I think D3 is one of the better one already. Playing destiny, I just pick the gear with the bigger number. Boring as hell.
I have some ideas how to improve loots experience in D4 & Looters in general, but its a topic that should be separated.
the big difference is in poe you can defeat all bosses on hardest difficulty/map with rare items only… in d3 you do nothing without your xxxxx% dmg bonus…
we look at that topic with a different viewing angle…
Not really. Those things are there for min/maxers if they want to use them. Re-rolling gear at the cube is by no means mandatory and far from a chore as you call it… I’ll do it if I have some excess mats and to finish the season journey, but you can still have plenty of fun and completely ignore that recipe until late game.
Rares are certainly more useful than D3 for sure. I give PoE that. But in the end, you just hope for a double damage stats to get the dps output, like xxx% for D3 in legs. Feel more sentimental than actual meaningful. Most rare items in most games are stat sticks.
Remnant where all items are uniques, are more exciting as all of the item have special leg powers than say Destiny 2 with color coded rarity level that are mostly stat sticks. Pick pick one with higher value.
The problem with Remnant is, eventually, you found all the legs & the loot hunt is over. That however is another topic.
Yes. When everything is a stat growth and when you have ways to guarantee that from an endless pit called rifts, it’s usual that you lose that excitement too. All the utility related stats are only useful at very endgame, highest efficiency takes over diversity when you put all the challenge upon one measure (plvl and GRs, all in the same).
Legendary power items rain from the sky just so game can substitute the lack of trading or well thought crafting. A good 90% of those items don’t matter to a high plvl player to create alts and enjoy game in its all aspects or depth.
They are the end game if you care about finding that minuscule dmg/def increase compared to your full ancient gear but they’re more of a reeling hook for standing as a reason for attending the next and oncoming seasons. It’s not Primal items’ fault that progression in this game peaks fast, it’s all about linear one dimensional stat growth being put on top of a pedestal.
Looking at how many things they gonna borrow from D3 despite the saying they “ain’t gonna repeat D3 or D2”; I wouldn’t count on that by the looks of quarterly reports. Just look at the itemization. Are you grateful that they repeat the legendary powers?
Same pitfalls still apply regardless of what designers claim game would be. It all starts with server space and engine performance ofcourse but their mistakes on simple design contributed to all of this. They refused to use their own intuition as designers back then and just listened to loudest outcries, this processed like a double edge along years.
You have beaten the game. You got 8 years out of it, how long did you think the merry-go-round would go?
Move onto another game.
One of the reasons for why loot isn’t much exciting anymore is because legendaries and set items just drop waaay too often, so it becomes less special when one drops.
Another reason for why loot is not that great in D3 is - in my opinion - that legendaries and sets no longer have predetermined affixes like in D2 and that the range in which these affixes can roll in D3 is too large.
In D2, when you found a unique or set item, you knew what you have gotten and the range in which these affixes can roll was not too large for the most part, with some exceptions ofc.
In D2 you could equip all the uniques and RW’s you desired and then fill out the rest of the stats you needed with rare or magic items in certain slots, like boots or amulets for example (remember tri-res boots with Fast Run Walk, Magic Find and Faster Hit Recovery? the dream!).
Two other reasons for why loot was better in D2 that you kinda mention here are that
- the items were by far not as overpowered as in D3.
Yes, there are some notable exception like Spirit RW, Enigma RM , Call to Arms RW, Infinity RW, and they should have been nerfed, but that is nothing compared to 20.000% * 400% * 800% increased damage on many sets and legendaries.
It basically means that in D3 your build is useless without the right items, while in D2 even with suboptimal gear, your build did still (reasonably) well.
- There were not necessarily “Key Items” in D2, aside from Infinity and Enigma
Loot should enhance your build, not determine your build.
While D2 items mostly enhance your build, in D3 your build gets determined by the massively overpowered sets and legendaries that only buff specific skills or sets of skills, which bth reduces skill-, build-, and item-diversity.
====================================
Two Bonus point why itemization is not really great in D3, but I will not further elaborate on that:
- Mainstat
- Critical Hit Damage (not Critical Hit Chance)
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So if these things would ahve gotten into D3’s itemization design philosophy (and hopefully they will get into D4’s), it would have been much better:
- much lower legendary / set drop rate
- more predetermined normal affixes
- rare and magic items being useful, maybe even competitive with legendaries in some slots
- no massive, skill-specific multipliers
- items should enhance your build, not determine it
- no Mainstat
- no Critical Hit Damage (at least not so much that it is abundant and overpowered - and for D4, no Crushing Blow Damage, only Crushing Blow Chance)
====================================
I personally would have liked to see itemization that is a bit more like this:
— alternatively displayed like this: Imgur: The magic of the Internet
If you have 80% increased movement speed, this would result into ~250 additional flat damage for the weapon, and even more if you have more movement speed, but it is not like a 250% overall increase in damage.
project is epic fail right now. i waited for REAL and NEW content since years. paying for new add-ons is no problem. but with such team the current “Development” is a joke. other teams are doing everything better.
and YES! there is no point to hunt for gear. i sold everything after 1st week. EVERYTHING! gear doesnt really matter and it drop only trash for vendor. btw. loot filter anyone? yes, no, maybe? what ever…!
anyway i uninstalled d3, sc2 and removed all friends. because i will never come back or buy piece.o.s. games from this trash company ever again.
and i dont even update ow. because… well… content!!! its like spongebob tweaks some numbers here and there and this monkeys call it “epic new content” or what ever.
It’s not all bad: I just received an ancient Traveler’s Pledge on my Wizard with what I would consider near-perfect stats (I value things a little differently than others, so that’s subjective). I suppose they think I’d be upset that it rolled with Dexterity instead of Intelligence.
Well, I know my Demon Hunter or Monk would benefit greatly by that amulet, and I would have had to go through hell to get one rolled like that for either of them. Joke’s on you, Blizzard: I can use that.
Great call on extra secondary affix benefits and more diverse stats.
Thank you! Apprechiate the feedback!
What I did was basically putting certain affixes that currently in D3 are considered Secondary Affixes (like Singe Resistances, Life per Kill, Reduced Damage from Melee/Ranged Attacks) into the Primary Affix Category, very much like it was in D2 where Single Resistances, etc where a lot more powerful and useful…
like these ones:
… and Bonus Affixes / Secondary Affixes are now only things that are not combat relevant like
- Indestructible
- Pick Up Radius
- Magic Find
- Gold Find
- XP Bonus
- Shrine & Pylon Duration (this one is kinda semi-combat related)
- Light Radius
That imo is a very good middle ground between D2’s Affix system and D3’s affix system. Even affixes like ‘Life per Kill’ that are now a Primary Affix can be useful with a legendary item that gives you a bonus based on your Life per Kill, like this redesigned / re-imagined Executioner:
or some other legendaries that e.g. give you additional armor based on your Cold Resistance or an aura that deals Holy Damage based on Light Radius, or additional Lightning Damage based on your Lightning Resistance, etc…
Also making Sockets separate from the Primary Affixes allows fro more customization for sockets and affixes.
I have about two and a half pages of a word document full of possible affixes for weapons and another one and a half for armor affixes, but some of the highlights for me would be
- Energy Shield,
- Armor (that works differently than just a simple % damage reduction to everything),
- Parry (chance to block a melee attack with a weapon)
- Dodge Rating,
- Death Blow (Culling Strike),
- Twin Strike (when dual wielding, attack with both weapons at once),
- reduced Damage taken from Enemies in Melee-Range/outside of Melee-Range,
- Pierce through x% of enemies Resistances/Armor/Energy Shield
- chance that your attack can not be blocked, dodged or parried
Affixes that are specialized like these can be really useful, especially when affixes that are overall more useful are less powerful, e.g.:
- +40 to All Resistances VS +~180 to a Single Resistance
- reduces all damage taken by 5% VS reduces damage from ranged/melee/spell attacks by ~15%
I would love to work on D4 btw…
I have a 30 pages long google doc that I sent to the D3 CMs through social media. Under all that trash I followed a similar idea as yours just not for itemization but at active skills synergizing from secondary affixes. Yeah, I really liked the effort you shown on itemization.
I’m sure development team has their own view on things to water it d-- I mean “step forward”. I believe they’re not in the mood to take criticism or ideas unless you start an outcry on social media. I tried back at Diablo 3 classic times it didn’t work, now it doesn’t work because they don’t care anymore and have no resources to waste.
So… I wouldn’t worry about that. Sure I would like to work on that as much as you, but I’m way past target audience at terms of age. I wanna play an old school ARPG with community bonds; they’re stuck on result focused forward progress at the cost of removing unique experiences and we’ll not gonna meet in the middle. I accepted it.
To start with, D3 has no loot.
Awesome! Is this for the whole of D4 (or what D3 could have been, or just for items / affixes?
I have about
- 100 pages for an alternative story of D3 with ideas for new cinematics and each act being maped out with zones and enemies, events, etc,
- 40 pages of Legendary (non-class specific) Weapons
- 50 pages of Legendary (non-class specific) Armor pieces
- 80 pages of Legendary class-specific Items
- 25 pages of Runewords
- 65 pages of Sets (which are more like D2-style sets)
- 40 pages for each of the 7 Character Classes (with Skills, Passives, Attributes, Subclasses, etc), which is a total of 280 pages for all Character Classes combined
- countless of other documents for things like enemies, mechanics, game modes, artisans, followers, etc.
This has been a hobby / project of mine since the last 10+ years.
I obviously can’t and will not send all of that to the devs, since I would not demand that they read all of that (and it would be understandable that they wouldn’t want to read all of that and feel that it would be too imposing).
If there is something I would do, then it would be more like broad concepts illustrated in pictures, that I would show, like I did in the past e.g. for a Skill System for Active Skills , or a Passive Skills System and various individual Passive Skills (and maybe some of these), for an Attribute System, certain individual Active Skills and of course for Legendary and Rare and Magic Items.
In illustrated form that is much easier to see and understand than having dozen of pages to read and then coming up with an image in ones head to what that could look like.
What are Secondary Affixes is your concept? Just like my ‘Bonus Affixes’, which are just non-combat related affixes, or do you refer to Secondary Attributes?
Yeah, sure, I certainly would not want to impose my ideas on them and I will not be angry if they don’t. I would feel terrible for doing so and they would be annoyed, which would make me feel even worse.
It is their game and their vision, and I respect that.
However, that does not stop me from coming up with ideas and fantasies and sharing and discussing them. In fact, it would be difficult for me (having Ne as second most dominant function) to not come up with ideas, since things like that come to me naturally without me even trying.
If they take inspiration from that, that is fine, but I will still not impose my ideas on them or demand that they implement them.
It worked in regards to the massive multipliers that D3 had, which will not return in D4 (since these were largely disliked by the community in general), however, I have the feeling that the people who are making D4’s itemization are still more leaning towards a WoW-like itemization rather than a D2-like (or Median XL-like) itemization, which is kinda sad imo.
I keep my expectations open. I think that D4 will definitely be better and more diverse in regards to items and builds than D3 (for the simple fact that these massive multipliers are gone), but the question is ‘by how much will it be better?’.
You only need gear with the right rolls if you are trying to push. But most of the time you are stuck doing speed grifts to get the augs.
Then when you finally prepare all the gear that you need after countless hours of grinding, you discover that pushing is all about fishing for the right map and pylon placement. Which then negates pretty much all of the effort that you put into finding the right gear in the first place.
Rinse and repeat for each class.
The latter two. I only was working on it for a year or slightly more. As for the focus, it was rather diverse and about D3. Document had some once sounded silly requests in it besides a few grounded ones. I kept all of them. To name;
- slight glimpses of different systems such as talisman, seventh active skill, rune words, devil cards (very vaguely mentioned) and jewels
- non-cosmetic wings that work like some sort of non-class based perks to be useful at PvP, PvE, push, farm builds rewarded by set dungeons or achievements
- slight tweaks at itemization, a trading system and how to separate it from self-found
- PvP mode with a proper player filter (which they never gonna oblige)
And so on…
You can try to reach CMs over social media (like here, you may never know if you took their attention or not though) or toss a link here after you put them through a google doc like me. CMs read here anyway and it’s their duty to include such details in their weekly reports.
Secondary affixes on items can easily synergize or empower less used, less popular skills. Instead of buffing an entirety of Set item, I guess allowing base damage of targeted skillrunes to be lower but allowing them to be boosted via secondary affixes of items would give space and comparable performance to the top choice.
There’s a possibility that designers who worked in D3, are now working under D4 team. As far as I know, one of D3’s item designers is now designing items for D4. This also could apply for other item and class designers of D3, because why not?
Now with D4, the legendary powers can be applied to any item and resemble a skillrune modifier more than damage boasting. I mean, that’s a start. However, two years later, if they wanted to create a wand that increases fireball damage by 25000% permanently when you cast glacial ice once, so be it.
It’s their game. All it took was a few outcries from social media for D3 to be plastered with multipliers and we have no word if they want to use a “working formula”. People who still play this game religiously, still play for infinite scaling and they will give their feedback that way.
For me, the only way for them to not fall into the same trench is allowed by going far far away from Diablo 3 but knowing genre has a very limited design notions and stereotypes, it’s hardly possible.
I still think I’ll not be in the target audience. I have to see where game would arrive a year after, before I jump in. I don’t wanna sound like a “bitter fan” -which I kinda am-, I believe it will be widely successful, if it has trading -and occassional PvP- the interest will be amazing for sure; just I think I have outgrown the series somewhat.
No promises about it. Have you imagined D3 classic to have huge multipliers 2-3 years later? Neither did I.
edit: grammar and extra drivel.
Hey you can’t leave those armour racks and stones unchecked. My first legendary ever in the game was from a little plain chest and I found a perfectly rolled primal Azurewrath with my Frenzy Barb in season 20 from an armour rack.
Yup the absolute most important thing diablo has to do to “be diablo” is to have rare, very rare, diverse, loot. Like, not primals, actually diverse.
At all levels of gameplay, too, that matter, then, not just for a few levels or if the rest of the set is found and supporting weap / rings which is just more set just not green in color.
Its prio 1.
Prios 2-100 follow after that.
I’d say prio 2 i mean its splitting hairs but having loot be deep so that you like spend years thinking about builds, learning, such as you know d2’s way of AS/FCR/FHR/MS and so on block. Like knowing these framerates and knowing what items can have what having the not rarest item type have the chance to group the most desired stats in a combo, like a circlet f/e, IS the hunt, IS the ultra rare. Guess what? I guarantee the D2 devs didn’t foresee “oh, this circlet can have this 5 affixes exactly and that’s the best helmet in the game for many builds” it just happened to be a possibility that the idk 20 years of them not being at the company let us as a community figure out. They probably felt CoA is the goat for many builds, which for some it is, so its critical that the one stop legendary isnt top dog, it has to be top dog in some builds, but not all, same with the rare, or else legendaries wont matter if they can never be best. has to be shared to basically have 2-3 layers of “omg i want to check this item out” gameplay even at max level. Which, un-ID’d items make this possible so you KNOW what you are seeing on the ground and not just picking up everything, and auto pickup would not help since then you aren’t doing anything but killing mobs and not balancing picking up items w combat. like, its so many things d2 did right over 3 w/o debate.
Having it be simple like “grandfather” is cool at first, but lame, if it doesnt take learning to know what affixes should be grouped and what matters. It just becomes "find grandfather’ and thats not diablo 2, thats like intro to diablo looking for 1 item that doesnt vary.
D3 failed at prio 1, loot.
It’s one reason why the game didnt make it in the ‘totally awesome’ category for most ppl, no offense meant, just factually.
I think in early D3 tho the rare loot was there, but like that AH sorta took the point out of even looking for loot, so then they took rare away from loot, which is no better than having an AH with rare loot. Then they added primals, which aren’t diverse. Like that dart aimed for triple 20 and it hit like single 20. thats what happened w primals. then a bunch of ppl are like “hey you only got 20 pts” and then blizzard didnt say anything back to that comment. lol like thats basically what happened.
That’s d3 for you. Devs, we want what d2 had, super easy to pick up and go, risky on the first mob, yet super deep (understanding somewhat and time) to find the ultra rare gear later on. It hits everything. different goals, but its all fueled by gear. rare and also diverse gear. And no, enigma doesnt overshadow like the ultra rare things, d2 made some mistakes for sure, spirit being the biggest.
I mean questing, commitment, exploration, feeling on edge bc hostile, not knowing whats there bc fog, getting cornered bc fog map design monster design, dying penalties, communicating with people to get a town portal things like this are all super critical values d2 hit that d3 thought were bad things or something. Purpose, besides a leaderboard…like its just those are the 2-100 if we keep going.
D4 devs…being “dark”. Notice how that’s not prio 1? Or really in the top 50? That’s why everyones saying you got to understand d2, its not about being “dark” its about a whole lot of other things, weve been saying for almost a decade now? If you took exactly D3 and made it “dark” it would be like, the exact same game, and still wouldnt be like diablo 1/2. “rare and diverse loot at all levels” doesnt sound as simple as “dark” but that should of been your marketing term. “solo play” should also you know, been in the mix too. If you can’t nail group play in the leveling process, solo play is the safer bet. Group play can exist at high levels but it shouldnt be the entire game like GR’s are in D3. Anyway, there’s some thoughts.
Great discussion, I hope D4 dev look at this thread.
I want to add something a bit…different.
One issue I have with pretty much most looters are most gears are stat stick (with a few affix that can roll on a type than other, like movement speed on boots)
I think EVERY gears must have its core purpose & the CORE purpose is the MOST important thing to look intro the gear, & not just a collection of stats.
Weapon:
Main damage source. (this part most games did well) , this does not mean you always take the one with highest dps, but dps must be extremely important.
Shield:
Block related purpose (block chance, block amount, block recovery) (D3 is awful in this department, some other games like PoE & Grim dawn does better)
Body Armor:
Main defence, with defence being the most critical purpose
Boots, Movement related purspose
Eg additional charge to movement skill, reduce cooldown for movement skill, gain xx speed avter pick up globe etc.
Belt:
Potion buff, amount of potion/bombs you can carry etc. e.g Reduce cooldown of potion by xx%, increase potency of potion by xx%
Rings:
Store charges like teleport (5/10) & buff socketed gem. eg. defense gem socket gain xx% potency
The next point may require discussion, but I also propose reduce effect or just remove of stats stick stats e.g all resisst, Vit from gears, so each gear is unique for their role, & put main stat stick either as socketable jewels, or charms (in charm box like last epoch).