Is Diablo Itemization a Cursed Problem

General Discussion
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TLDR: You can never make everyone happy with itemization. There are only itemization structures that cater to specific groups of gamers. For example, if you like MMOs, you probably like crazy rare drops and crazy high prices (shows how good of a player you are when you have these items). If you like D3 more than D2 then you like item based builds. D2>D3, you like your character/skill choices to be where you get your power from. It’s a cursed problem because it comes down to personal taste.

I’ve been playing Diablo 2 lately and got to thinking about D4s development. And I had a thought.

So there are certain game design problems that are contradictory to each other. These are known as cursed problems. As an example: Auction houses and having really awesome drops. The easier it is to sell an item, the lower the price of items get, especially once the game ages and players have more time to farm endgame content. WOW and other MMOs attack this by making rare drops extremely rare. This also means that they will be super expensive on the auction house. This is “cursed” because you can only please one group of player.

So for itemization, lets say, you prefer to play solo self-found types of games. In this type of system, don’t it’ll be horrible. You have to use the auction house to save your sanity. This game style is not for you. It’s far easier to farm your favorite content and sell over items to get something you don’t enjoy farming for.

We’ve already seen what happens with a Diablo auction house already so I’ll leave the subject now. Yikes

Anyways, I was thinking about how all the previous Diablo games has worked. Specifically player power vs. item power.

Diablo 1 which didn’t have a skill tree basically had your one-best-build for each class. All other choices just weren’t as good but most were viable enough. Your main power was pretty item based. Very basic but it was the first Diablo and was very influential so I won’t crap on it too hard.

OG Diablo 2 had skill trees but everything was super screwed up with them. Very few builds were viable (through endgame) and items really only played a complementary part to a build. Your main power was pretty level and skill point based. (With the exception of resistances).

With the expac for D2, balance changes were made to skills and items were drastically changed (imo too many changes to ensure balance). With the introduction of runewords, some builds became viable through them but NOT through skill points alone (Enigma being the biggest example). This placed the power source onto items, but unevenly through specific items.

Runewords are contradictory to the rest of itemization in D2. Before this you could use most rarities in most slots for most (already viable) builds. Now builds required specific runewords. And I’m only talking about viable for Hell, not ubers.

I think most people I’ve talked to agree that some runewords are quite broken and another balance for them was needed but not plausible on the development side of things at the time. However it’s all personal taste anyways. It was screwed up one way and now its screwed in another. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

D3 tried to make everything far harder to obtain and made the difficulty scale so hard that you couldn’t get through it without marginally more damage. Its power was solely provided through items, so they tried to drop the chance of getting tood items in the first place. Perfect for people who prefer grind. Extreme grind. But it’s another personal preference.

Even after D3 redid loot everything was still item based. The biggest problem that I think most people have with it is that you have even less choice now that you must play a specific set build with specific legendary items the complement that set.

In conclusion, I think the balance of power between items and character is a cursed problem. However I’d like to hear if anyone else has an idea of getting around this though. Or even what people prefer. Is there another game that does balance in a way that you prefer more? Which Diablo design is your favourite?

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Current. I utterly dislike when drops are balanced with a need for trading in mind, and that’s not even touching on the Pay to Win aspect of a system like D2. An army of botters selling anything and everything for cash.

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If gear defines the character, it restricts how one plays and it becomes a hunt for those specific items, all else used only as a means to get to the ones actually desired.

If skills/player choice define the character, every item is potentially useful and it opens up play to choice. In this way, D2 is arguably ‘better’ than D3 as there are simply more ways to play the same class though it also suffers from late game adds that make certain things nearly mandatory (especially runewords.)

So, I prefer the second, without the heavy-handed “but these are still better… you know you want them.”

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WoW more solved it by making most items untradeable.

Thatis not really a curse though. You dont have to please multiple groups of players.
Heck, it is better if you dont try to, as it only leads to a mediocre mess of a game.
Cater to one group instead.
(simplification of course, on some topics it is easy to cater to multiple groups and you can do so with no detrimental to your game)

As for trading, do not allow trading at all. It has nothing to do in an A-RPG imo.

Yeah, honestly, runewords made D2 worse. They are too easy to get, and overpowered.

Both Grim Dawn and PoE does reasonably well in terms of character vs. gear imo.
I dont think it is even particularly hard to get right.
Both character and gear should be meaningful. The stated goal of half power coming from character and half from gear, would be a good one, if Blizzard could deliver on it (which I very much doubt).

Also, to make sure that both character and gear matters, and keeping each in check… the larger power gains need to be additive, not multiplicative. Multiplicative effects need to be kept at low numbers, and hard to obtain.
Another way to keep things in check can be to have base values + modifier values. Where only the second part is affected by gear power.

Like a fireball dealing 100 base dmg + 50 modifiable dmg. You cant ever change the first part through gear. That alone slows the power scaling. Even a 200% fireball dmg gain only gets you from 100+50 to 100+150. Effectively a 66% gain.

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I’m proposing a route of which the basics (i.e. basic route/power) of a skill is unlocked by nodes but “generic affixes” buff them further, for example things like:

  • Whirlwind: 200 dex : you’re no longer slowed while whirlwind
  • Item Affix: gain 20% movement and cast speed while using a channeling skill

(resulting in 120% movement while using WW)

OR things like:

  • Whirlwind: 200 str: 33% chance to knockback opponents while using whirlwind
  • Item Affix: increase distance of displacement effects by 30%
    (knocking back opponents even further, but it’s not just WW specific, say you could have some other knockback skill like some spear throw for ex.)

Same could be done with affixes like:

  • Increase radius of Melee skills by 15%
    (15% greater WW range, but could also be used with other skills like Nova or HotA for ex.)

Think that would be the best route overall… Both skills/nodes would matter but also the synergy to the gear (or not/deliberate lack of) with those

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It’s just too complex to ever be mastered. You can change mechanics any way you like but if it was ever reasonably balanced it would be a complete accident. Even then it would likely be temporary. Ten thousand average people can break things designed by a hundred geniuses every time.

The only group you need to please is most.

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The one very good thing about D3 itemization is that you can easily notice the legendary effect, not just by visual changes or damage increasing, but by the time-to-complete a GRift decreasing.

I prefer D3’s item philosophy, but it wasn’t finished and that shortcoming is a pain point. Assume they made all of the existing items useful — it still wouldn’t be enough.

Certain builds are item locked and too few builds per damaging skill leads to monotony. Think about the weapon/offhand/cube setups for Blessed Shield, there is only 1. Shouldn’t I choose between Gyrfalcon’s Foote and several other legendary effects to make shields explode for AoE damage, Barbed shields for Thorns, shields that infinitely spin around me and improve Shield Bash, 12 Shields 30 degrees apart that shoot out and return to me like a boomerang?

This is the expanding item depth that should have been developed and balanced since RoS, creating a dozen legendary effects per skill is a good goal. A few more item affixes to help create synergies so each build isn’t prioritizing the same rolls — item types beyond primal to prolong the loot hunt.

It takes A LOT of time to produce it, but that is itemization we want to get lost in.

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Biggest flaw of Diablo 3 itemization is how unrewarding it is higher you go. 5-6 random affix plastered over everything doesn’t encourage player to try new things or work around while their luck never really on their side. Why not thrive for the best if nothing is guaranteed to work together as long as it’s not perfect?

We are coming to the end of S24 and people just loved Ethereals, feedback amassed was incredible along this 2-2½ months. Ask them if you don’t believe me; some artificial loothunt added so much to the game even streamers are happy by the feedback they got. Streamers telling that S24 left the biggest impression on the community so far.
People play ARPG to work around obstacles and live their fantasy. When you remove obstacles, what you have is a vast empty space of a sandbox. It only serves to divert player experience by randomization but expecting them to perform the same. This is not a good design overall, neither any enticing.

For years I have said itemization and rewards are falling short in Diablo 3; there wasn’t any plateau to catch your breath. Loothunt was cut abruptly and game shoved you to one treadmill, one endgame model. As a result players get burnouts and never get truely connected to the game over years. Loothunt supposed to work like a lever to make space to experiment. Game ain’t supposed to beat the player by randomization, it supposed to beat the player with the struggle in action.
My words fell on deaf ears for long. However, the moment developers decided to take action, the community response becomes overwhelmingly positive for this change. I wonder if there’s a correlation between mitigating some randomization or it’s just a coincidence after Blizzard have lost 24% of their MAU over 3 years.

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Everyone likes the idea of a legendary to “stand out” and that’s totally fine (well, Uniques this time as they say it, just as like in D2, Uniques are gonna give you something that NO OTHER ITEM in the game will)

The problem with D3 is = the theme… They really have to “disperse” it to more generic stuff and/or be less damage-related… You really CAN’T compete with anything a 5000% or 10000% damage increase, but if the affix is something different but yet super cool/unique you just might end up appreciating the competitiveness of the pieces

Here are a few examples of a legendary that I think would work just right:

  • Gain 25% of your highest elemental resist in damage. Double this bonus when 1v1
  • Gain Str/Dex/Int/WP*5 [one of these rolled random] as much sockets you have in gear
  • “Engagement radius” is now reduced 33%. Any hit effect done on 1v1 (only one opponent inside the engagement radius) is doubled in power

Here’s a couple of hit-effect related ones:

  • Instead of knocking back opponents now you levitate them in the air, levitated opponents take 50% more damage from melee sources but take 50% less from DoA/AoE
  • Instead of stun now you knock-down opponents on the ground. Knocked down opponents take 50% less damage from melee but take 50% extra damage from all AoE
  • Bleed now causes faster drain to moving targets and doesn’t expire on them while moving

Or even this:

  • Freeze and Root now entangle opponents instead, entangled opponents can still move at 33% rate but take 25% per stack extra damage from all sources of DoT

Or even these:

  • Buffs and DoTs stack up twice as fast (2 at a time) but have 1 less total stack maximum
  • Buffs and DoTs turn into a random curse/blessing for 5 seconds every time they reach maximum stacks

With Legendaries (i.e. uniques) it really comes down to the “theme” of things, there’s always a room for creativity with those regardless how you “set up” the basics

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In general, legendaries/uniques having pros and cons to them, “Do X, but weaker at Y” is a good way to design them imo. They dont all have to be like that, but most of the strong ones should. Where you are giving up something substantial, to gain power in a specific area.

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well, not literally saying “get x but lose y” because this is triggering a certain thing in peoples minds that makes them think this item is not “good” or “enjoyable”.
but simply having a spear f.e. that just doesn’t have as much raw damage as comparable weapon on the same level but in return having 50% more aoe range would be recognizable as somehing special without saying “this has a clear negative”

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Yeah. More or less the same result though.
It can also be stuff like “Fireball deals 50% more dmg, but costs 50% more”. Nothing is taken away there either. You might just need to build differently, to be able to sustain that cost.

Though you can of course also have the ones where things are literally taken away;
like “Frostbolt deals 30% more dmg, but can no longer freeze”.
I dont see the problem in saying it has a clear negative. Trying to hide the negative, that is still there, doesn’t seem much better :slight_smile:

And if some people think the item is less good because of the negative, that also doesn’t seem like much of an issue. In the end the actual power of the item will speak for itself.

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Kinda perhaps but not quite, you can imagine a legendary be like 1.5-2.5 pieces and have those “0.5s” (like small amounts of mana per kill) to “fill in” the totals to be fair in totals (comparatively)

If you have a total gear of say 100 (or 110 with some socketing shenanigans later maybe) affixes and each gear piece has some own “weight” with each affix category with it’s own “subweight” you can create an “algorythm” which will “fill in the gaps” once strong stuff has been used initially, i.e.:

Let’s say that the “final” weight of the gear looks like the following:
Primary Offensive/Defensive and Skill-empower affixes are “weight” 5 or 6 affix points, the primary Stats/Resistances/AS/MS stuff “weight” 4 affix points, bonuses of primary stuff “weight” 3, other combatable affixes “weight” 2, and “non-combatables” “weight” 0.5 affix points but can’t be placed more than 2 at a time on same item, then you end up with say something like this:

2-Hand = 16
Chest = 14
Weapon = 12,
Helm, Shield, Off-Hand, Pants/Gloves = 10
Jewelry = 9

So you end up with a “total” of 100 (give or take) affix points, and then some extra room for “specified improvement” later on with some socketing…

So let’s say each of those legendary affix points have their own “weight” & gear-type, and say they look like this:

  • Gain 25% of your highest elemental resist in damage. Double this bonus when 1v1 [6 affix points, H, S, O, P/G]
  • Gain Str/Dex/Int/WP*5 (%) [one of these rolled random] as much sockets you have in gear [6 AP, Jewelry only]
  • “Engagement radius” is now reduced 33%. Any hit effect done on 1v1 (only one opponent inside the engagement radius) is doubled in power [8AP, weapons only]
  • Instead of knocking back opponents now you levitate them in the air. Levitated opponents take 50% more damage from melee sources but take 50% less from DoA/AoE [8AP, 2Hand]
  • Instead of stun now you knock-down opponents on the ground. Knocked down opponents take 50% less damage from melee but take 50% extra damage from all AoE [7AP, Weapons only]
  • Bleed now causes faster drain to moving targets and doesn’t expire on them while moving [6AP, Weapons only]
  • Freeze and Root now entangle opponents instead, entangled opponents can still move at 33% rate but take 25% per stack extra damage from all sources of DoT [15AP]
  • Buffs and DoTs stack up twice as fast (2 at a time) but have 1 less total stack maximum [7 AP, Jewelry only]
  • Buffs and DoTs turn into a random curse/blessing for 5 seconds every time they reach maximum stacks [7AP, Jewelry only]

NOW you can end up “summing” those with the other “pool” of affixes, and end up with “sets” like:

The elementalist’s sleeves (Gloves)

  • 15 Armor (basic stat)
  • 15% reduced cost of melee skills (secondary affix = 3PTS)
  • 25% chance to cast melee spells 1v1 uncontested (0.5AP = ±0)
  • 3 Mana per kill (0.5 AP ±0 basically)
    • Gain 25% of your highest elemental resist in damage. Double this bonus when 1v1 [6 affix points, H, S, O, P/G = Gloves, so fits]

[Total = 9AP]

And there you go, another gloves might have stuff like:

Elementalist’s gauntlets of incineration (Gloves)

  • 15 Armor (basic stat)
  • 15% chance to ignite on hit (hit-effect, 3AP)
  • 10% overtime fire damage increased (primary-stat = 3AP)
  • 10% increased chance to hit-effect vs ignited (secondary bonus, but combatant = 2AP)
  • 25% less duration from poison and shadow damage (secondary bonus, defensive =1AP)

[Total = 9AP]

Or this:

Marauder’s sickle (Axe)

  • 500 ATK (primary stat)
  • 10% chance to cause Bleed on hit (Primary affix)
  • Hit-effects reduce target’s healing by 25% (Combatant, secondary = 2AP)
  • +10 minimum guaranteed damage vs bleeding (secondary affix = 2AP)
  • 5% chance to leave corpse (non-combatant = 0.5 = ±0AP)
  • Bleed causes 25% faster drain to moving targets and doesn’t expire on them while moving [Legendary, 6AP]

[Total = 10AP]

OR something like:

Brutal axe of Slaying:

  • 500 ATK (Primary stat)
  • 10% chance to cause Bleed on hit (Primary affix)
  • 15% bonus damage from Melee skills (primary affix = 3AP)
  • 15% chance to cleave on hit (hit effect, additional = 3AP)
  • +20 minimum guaranteed damage vs Bleeding targets (secondary combatant but high roll = 3AP)
  • Enemies slain rest in peace (“non-combatant” but unconditional = 1AP)

[Total = 10AP]

That’s how things I’d imagine to work in general, EACH AFFIX has a category, a roll quality, and it’s “weight” that “contributes” towards a certain “total” on a gear piece

Here’s an armor example as well:

Sanctuary of the wicked
Chest piece
2500 DEF (Primary)

  • 10% less damage taken from Elites (Primary affix)
  • 25% increased Poison/Shadow resist [one of these] (Primary stat, 3 AP)
  • 25% increased buff duration from Consumables (Secondary stat, 1AP)
  • Damage overtime taken lasts twice as long, but any time you’ve taken 5 stacks of any type you can cast a Slow-Time bubble that consumes incoming projectiles for 3 seconds… After the bubble ends you gain a Ward/Shield for 25% of the bubble-consumed total damage. This effect also increases your spellpower by consumed-projectiles/3% damage [Legendary = 7AP]

Warden’s ribcage or warding
Chest piece
2500 DEF (Primary)

  • 10% less damage taken from Elites (Primary affix)
  • 25% reduced impair duration taken (Defensive stat, 3AP)
  • Hit-effects have a 15% chance to cast ward for 3 sec (Secondary, 2AP)
  • 25% reduced damage taken while Shielded (Secondary stat, 2AP)
  • Gain shield/ward for 50% of HP/Mana on potion drink (Secondary combatant but high roll =, 2AP)
  • 15% chance to reset buff stacks while healthy (Secondary, combatant = 1AP)
    (Secondary, non-combatant-ish, 0.5 = ±1AP)

[Total = 10AP]

So that’s basically how I’d do it “affixes” are measured (each with it’s own weight (compared to some minimal/trivial affix points) from a “total” that needs to be fulfilled), kinda like playing “tetris” where you have pieces from 3, 4, 5 or 6 blocks (or maybe even up to 8 at some strong cases) and have to “fill” in a certain space (say a 40 for the 4 row kill)

It’s not necessarily always a “give this take away that” within an affix itself i.e. when have a positive then must have a negative, but more like use this instead of 1.5-2.5 affixes and add a couple weakened (combat but conditional or “light radius” type) affixes in return kind of thing… :thinking: :slight_smile:

So it kinda goes like this:

  • Primary Stat (ATK/DEF/Spellpower, IDK what Jewelry might have as a primary stat but whatever it is)
  • Primary effect (hit-effect or damage-type-reduced for Armor/Weapons, Jewelry probably doesn’t need this)

And then goes like:

3, 3, 2, 2, 1 or something like 3, 3, ,3 ,1 for “regular” gear, and more like
5, 2, 2, 0.5, 0.5 for legendaries kind of thing (where the 5 is really a 5 on a scale of “imact” on things, but then again the TOTAL must feel like you’re giving up something)

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Ok, decided to do it right this time, so here’s 3 items below “crafted” step-by-step to make it more balanced/realistic at the end of generation/rolls of each:

  1. The pool of Primary Armor affixes (each armor piece, chest for ex. most impactful) would roll one of these:
  • % less damage taken from basic attacks
  • % less damage taken from special attacks
  • % less damage taken from subsequent hits
  • % chance to do a defensive trigger on suffered hit
  • Limit max impair effects taken to X
  • Limit impair stacks taken to X
  • % less duration from CC
  1. Primary armor stat affixes (each armor piece will have one, or more of these as well, keep adding up until the total is reached):
  • % bonus DEF
  • % resistance/MS/HP/Resource
  • +X primary stat or HP/Resource ReturnOrRegen rate
  • % reduce impair effects duration by X
  • % chance to do a defensive trigger on suffered hit
  • % damage taken goes to resource
  • % hit-effect suffered reduced
  1. Secondary/Conditional affixes (these are the additionals/conditional bonuses you may or may not benefit from in game):
  • % bonus effectiveness from consumables
  • % trap/summon Armor/HP
  • % trap/summon Resist
  • When Impaired/CC-ed gain Primary stat bonus
  • When Healthy/Shielded gain Secondary stat bonus
  • % bonus power of defensive triggers and skills
  • % bonus area of defensive triggers and skills

Ideally would have “fillers” at the end, but not gonna bother with those ATM and roll with just the primaries/secondaries/conditionals and (in first 2 cases) legendaries:

Having that in mind here are some of the possible combiantions, let’s say our legendary affix is this:

Gain 25% of your highest elemental resist in damage. Double this bonus when 1v1

Remember, the total for a chest-piece is 12 total affix “weight”, first primary affix goes free, but everything else gets calculated into the cost of things. As mentioned above, additional primary affix or primary-stat affixes cost = 3AP, secondary cost = 2AP, conditionals take away 1 from it’s counterpart, and high/low rolls add/reduce 1 in the total “weight” of APs:

You may end up with things like:

Chest [legendary]
2000 DEF

  • % 15 less damage taken from subsequent hits (primary = free)
  • % +10 to all stats [primary stat affix, second of type, cost = 3]
  • % 15% damage taken goes to mana (additional primary = cost 3)
  • ** Legendary [cost = 6]

Chest [legendary]
2000 DEF

  • % 15 less damage taken from subsequent hits (primary = free)
  • hit-effects suffered have a reduced damage by 30% (additional primary = cost 3)
  • % +While around 50% HP, chance to cast Self-Cleanse all Impair effects when hit (conditional, secondary = 2)
  • gain 10% of consumables on use as shielding (secondary, low roll = 1)
  • ** Legendary [cost = 6]

Here’s a one without the legendary/ies:

Chest [Rare]
2000 DEF

  • % 15 less damage taken from subsequent hits (primary = free)
  • +10% elemental resists (Primary stat, cost = 3)
  • % Reduce Impair effects duration by 40% (Primary stat, but high roll = 4)
  • +5% max Resource (Another primary stat but low roll, cost = 2)
  • While healthy hit-effects suffered have a reduced damage by 30% (additional, conditional primary = cost 2)
  • Trap/Summon have 50% HP regen rate when injured (secondary/Conditional, cost = 1)

As one can see = each of these items have a total “weight” of affix costs of 12, the first one gives 4 strong rolls (well, one is free primary armor affix, so 3) one of which is legendary, second one has 2 weaker and 2 strong rolls in addition to the legendary, 3rd has 3 additional primary stats (1 high roll so +1 cost, 1 low roll so -1 cost), and 2 conditional/secondary affixes cause one of them has low roll as well (2 cost instead of 3), so the whole item ends up having 6 affixes (instead of 1st that has only 4 but high impactful rolls, or 5 with 2 low rolls/secondaries in 2nd case)

Additionally may add a bit of superior/inferior RNG where a piece would have +1 or -1 to the totals but this was just “presentation” of a system of relatively-fair items generated…, and that’s basically how I think things should/are-imagined to work behind the scene/s , in other words the cost of gain/loss doesn’t have to be “entrapped” within the affix itself, it can just affect the TOTAL weight for reduction of either tier, number, or roll numbers of the other affixes and the item still end up being “fine” :slight_smile:

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I do agree that a legendary affix should come at the cost of like 3 other affixes that’s also what Blizz stated earlier that they have the power of 3 affixes and they should not just be additional to the other 5
But having weight 1,2 and 3 affixes feels a bit like a heavy compensation of bad RNG
“Oh, you got a bad roll on that thorns? Here take another 2 bad rolls on something else” xD
Maybe that’s just me
Maybe it would create higher build diversity but I think that magic and rare items would already be able to cover that “many weaker/few stronger rolls” aspect?
I mean in the end it might be the same thing just not binary.
There’s a spectrum between magic and rare instead of just these 2
Anyway better than what we currently have

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D4 has 2 types of “special” items, one is the Legendary affixes that can roll on different types of items, and the other are Uniques

You’re obv. talking about uniques where the whole item set never changes (just rolls on it), but kinda like the idea of it tbh, and as could be seen from the example above, the concept “clicks” just well I think :slight_smile:

About the “forgiveness factor” as said at the end, can add the superior/inferior item quality where you could gain a +1 total or -1 total and then not get “compensated” for a lower roll probably

3rd example is the Rare item, has 6 affixes instead of 4 (or 5 with 2 weak rolls) but doesn’t contain the Legendary… The blues I’m not quite sold or fond of but the whole notion about them is increase the rolls of the 2 affixes they roll on them (let’s say you have a super high nice roll of 120% on Socket power or something, you might wanna add a nice/nasty jewel there and socket it with 220% efficiency), but that’s kinda it. On the other hand if you increase the roll for the primary/reserved stat then they might become a tad bit OP, so the 2 rolls are the ones that probably can roll ±20% higher than other would, would be fine I think

The only ones that are left are the whites, I’d probably not care about them yet at this point but they should (probably) have some unique mechanic for precise crafting, like for example much less random outcome from attaching a runeword (or a component) to it, but again, not yet time to care about those, there will be plenty of time for “finishing touches” with them later quite a bit…

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Well in your example magic items are basically items with only weight 3 affixes originally while rare items are items with only weight 1 affixes (which are more)
Just that there is now space in between which allows for a wider spectrum of affix quality and number combinations

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Practically yes, 2x 3APs both of which would roll higher, thus 4APs a piece

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I just want to play a decent role-playing game, as an action role-playing game.
The game itself is important to me, not a number hunt and the itemization should not dominate me. The endgame should be the world itself and not the meaning and the goal and the rest does not matter… Because then we don’t have a roleplaying game, then we have a sports game and number crunching. So exactly what makes us all dissatisfied and basically blinded to what really matters.

D1 also worked without an endgame and did so absolutely convincingly. D2 had created a good foundation with skill systems and even still worked as a game. D3 didn’t work as a game at all anymore and was a single stupid grind for what exactly?
D4 with open world, I’m already afraid and fear for the actual value of the game.
With a little thought, you can already imagine what open world could mean in the end and that with quite some certainty.
A working grindfest, with content that will feel totally gimmicky and more or less totally undermine the value of immersive roleplaying.
This won’t be so noticeable on the first playthrough, it was in D3 too, but eventually with oversight, you’ll realize that D4 is just as much meant to fill the accounts of the money sharks and you’re just abusing the games for that, but they themselves are soulless.
And we players will notice this again soon and we will once again be the cheated, cheated out of another Diablo game as a game.

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I don’t see where an open world can cause you personally any trouble
It doesn’t mean any weird grindy gimmik whatsoever
If anything you are able to travel around a bit more and see beautiful landscapes instead of just grinding the trains
Isn’t that a plus?