Well the quote Avalon posted was from 2019 BlizzCon, which was when the item tiers for Diablo 4 were the following:
Normal → Magic → Rare → Set → Legendary → Mythic
Also the trading system was split between three categories:
- Unlimited and free: You could trade the item in question as many times as you want
- Most likely Normal, Magic, and Rare Tier items fitted this trade category
- Limited Trading: You could trade a specific item only one time and then it’s no longer tradable.
- Most likely Set and Legendaries tier items fitted this trade category
- Unable to Trade: You can’t trade this type of item at all, instead it’s bound to you the moment it drops for you.
- Most likely Mythic items, a tier of items so powerful that you could only equip one Mythic item at a time, fitted this trade category.
Now the itemization went through a number of changes. Mythic items no longer exist (as of now anyway), and had been replaced by unique items (which aren’t as powerful nor carry the same restriction), and the trade system seemed to be dialed down to two categories now (according to some of those who participated in the test):
- Limited Trading: You can trade a specifc item a few times before it becomes bound to a person and no longer tradable.
- Normal, Magic, and Rare items supposedly fit this category
- Unable to Trade: You can’t trade this item at all
- Set (assuming they’re still in the game), Legendaries, and Unique items seem to fit this category.
So yeah, I can imagine that the folks who want trading won’t be happy with this. But to call Diablo 4 a Diablo 3.5, just because of this is laughable at best imo. I mean if you give D3 free trading, it wouldn’t make it a better game, and most, if not all, of it’s core issues would still persist.