Making Rare and Magic Items useful in D4

[clueso-2790]

@Xeiom-2558

One thing I do enjoy about magic and rare items being effectively crafting materials is that they function as an automatic loot filter.

When you level up you care about them but as they get replaced with legendaries, you spend more time killing stuff and you know what is worth checking vs what is just materials.

In the games that have tried to stick closely to the formula of magic/rare items being impactful, they have had to handle this with often poor implementations of loot filters.

There is an easy way around this issue:

Put the “Loot Filter” on the Salvage Button of an Artisan (like the D4 equivalent to D3’s Blacksmith), so that only those Rare and Magic items get salvaged that don’t fulfill the requirements you set, while the Magic Items that you do want remain intact.

For example, if you are looking for Magic Gloves with at least 8% Crushing Blow and at least 11% increased Attack Speed, you can put that in the “Salvage Filter” and all Magic Gloves that do not fulfill these requirements get salvaged.

That way you still can kill and pick up everything and when you return to town, you just make one click and everything that is does not fit your set requirements is gone and you then check out the rest of the remaining pieces.

@Xeiom-2558

I’m just talking about the concept of having an item tier that is clearly defined above rare

What if you had to get some rare legendary ingredients that you need to upgrade a Magic Item, or a Legendary Consumable (similar to Radmaladni’s Gift) that adds a Random Affix to a Rare Item (and Rare Items only)?.

In general, Crafting is something that players like.

@Xeiom-2558

that allows players to focus on that loot rather than manically checked every small thing that drops or have a unnecessarily complex loot filter system.

As mentioned above, that could be solved with a “Salvage Filter”.

@Xeiom-2558

Personally, I’d like to see a return of uniques and then keeping legendary as the core rarity for a max level character

What do you suggest should be the difference between a Unique Item and a Rare Item and a Legendary?

@Xeiom-2558

But for me personally, I have no problem with every item being of “legendary” rarity and for those items to outclass the rares. Providing those legendary items can hold better item complexity.

@Beefhammer-1932

If you find a magic or rate that has better optimized stats and or affixes that’s fine. I don’t think they need to compete with legendaries at all.

I definitely would like if in SOME equipment slots Rare and Magic Items are the best (like for D3 that could have been Shoulders and Pants), while in others Legendaries, Sets and Runewords (if they implement D2 like Runewords) are the best, while in some slots they could compete with each other.

Imagine if in D3 Sets would rather be optional than mandatory, and you could craft some amazing Shoulders and Pants that complement your build by softening its weakness or increasing its strengths… I think that would be a lot of fun.

@Beefhammer-1932

However, I would not allow ADA stats on them at all, maybe just ADA bonuses.

I personally would not want to so ADA Power at all, because it is not a good replacement for actual Attributes. Rather I would like to see an improved version of D2’s Attribute System.

@Beefhammer-1932

or allow them to be be a base for improvement like making in the example in the OP.

Yes, I agree with that.

imo legendaries should be better by default than (un-upgraded) Rare and Magic Items, but perfectly or nearly-perfectly rolled Upgraded Magic and Rare Items should be able to compete with legendaries in some slots…

…while in other slots upgraded Rare and Magic Items still would not be able to compete with (endgame) Legendaries.

Making Upgraded Rare and Magic Items very good in some slots is what would make crafting fun in the endgame.