Hi, D4 Team, you’re doing great work so far and I’m glad you’re listening!
I wanted to talk about runes.
I’m glad runes are coming back to D4, but I hope there can be more depth to it than I saw in the Blizzcon discussions.
Runes and rune words are a great way to add more depth and complexity to the game. I believe it can be one of the major meaningful options of gear improvement in the journey towards end game.
I can understand the idea of trigger and effect, splitting the runes in 2 groups, which is a cool approach, but I really think there is much more potential to it.
In D2 rune words were a good way to improve your gear and power especially in early en mid game and there was a wide variety of choices to it, depending on the character style you wanted to play and depending on the runes you found.
If you do want to hold the idea of trigger and effect runes, maybe you can still implement secret rune words if you add (more) runes in a socketed item or if you add them in a specific socketed item.
Either way, I believe there lies a great opportunity for choices and fun in searching for the right runes, especially for early and midgame play. Also, it doesn’t have to be overpowered, but useful. And maybe a little bit more interesting than (unimproved) yellow items, so people have the urge to explore on them.
I’m a solo Diablo player since 1997, played D1, D2, D3 a lot. And as a solo player you really like to have options while leveling. Part of the fun is that you have to work with what you find on your own. (Remember the “Iron Man” challenge in D1, which is a good example for the idea). I believe you should be able to play Diablo without trading with or help from others. You should be able to ‘save the world’ if you’re the last capable man on Sanctuary. Making the most of what you find in your journey and having a lot of different options and the ability to be creative in many different ways is really enjoyable. Making meaningful rune words could play an important role in that experience.
Also Rune words have a story to them, coming from legends and myths, which really fits the style and atmosphere of this Diablo game. It could help tell a little bit more story about the places you travel in the game and about the characters’ backgrounds. The Druid for instance has a lot of runes and charms on his character’s appearance… what is the story behind them…? Maybe runes could play a role in certain rituals in the story or side quests and this way introducing different rune words to the game. Maybe Rune words can hold effects linked to the story of places or characters and if one would ‘study’ them, they could learn the rune word and use the effects. Effects that aren’t normally part of your character skills or abilities.
Just some thoughts, hopefully it’s helpful.
The best of luck working on this awesome game and keeping the Diablo experience vivid and strong!
nope we didnt
i also stated that in a post
but as the craftable legendary consumables just work like runewords, putting legendary effects into non legendary items, they cant do the same thing with runewords XD
that would be ultimately too much legendary stuff in the game xD
I just hope they mantain some kind of balance between all grade of items where you just dont have to salvage white items for example.
White items were pretty usefull in D2 as well you could get a Full sock on your item with larzuk quest in order to do runewords.
I think the D4 team needs to work towards white items and if there are gonna be etherial items too, so far we havent heard anything about that
It would be cool if all items as MR Llama said had benefits but also negatives.
Where there are limitations to the quantity of the affixes but also having lesser affixes means better rolls for that item
The more affixes → lesser rolls for that grade of item
The lesser affixes-> higher rolls for that grade of item
I hope they add at least some sort of like in PoE transmutation/alchemy/chance orb where you can basically create a magic/rare/legendary and additionally set item out of a crafting material and a white item… or else i see no much purpose for white items if they keep the current runeword system.
Remember you could also create a pvp item with jewels and 4 socket shield or 4 socket armors, 160/60 anyone?
Or -20/20 lightning/fire/cold/poison
If these dont return white items really need to get some new sort of use.
I get the same feeling bro, a mix of syllables is not a runeword, you dont create an item NAME out of it… but the D4 team stated in their itemization part 2 that they dont want to copy either D2 or D3.
well, while the new runesystem might not appear as epic and remarkable, as the D2 system, it does indeed give the players more choice
i mean sure, in certain situations, you did just use the runes for themselfes but most of the time, you were making a runeword and thats just a fix thing
“use grief” “use enigma”
with the new system you can potentially have 1000 of different combinations, adjusted to your very own playstyle
Exactly it gave a purpose to the basic tier of items. And given these are even more optional and customizable, there’s as much potential in a great runeword system as in the legendary consumable.
The big issue in Diablo 2 was that patch 1.11 runewords were overpowered, which was excused by their rarity. But if worked in properly they don’t have to be.
as i said, weeks ago, you could still go like
the lesser the tier, the more sockets
you just have to balance it in a way, your char wont get overloaded with effects xD
Yes the only problem is that white items will have no affixes at all…
So making a white item have more “trigger effects” will be hard to balance with magic,rare,set and uniques which will obviously have way more affixes and values.
I am not sure if there is a balance enough between quantity of affixes/quantity of sockets.
So you say you want to give whites affixes anyway?
its not too immersive since it will be already “magic” or enchanted somehow…
a white item is purely clean lol…
But yes if you give a few affixes to white it could balance it out i guess.
Why not just use white items for crafting? Runewords only serve a purpose if there is variety of item types which we don’t have in D3 and I haven’t seen in D4. Without variable items it just becomes a legendary item that you had to collect in pieces. By variable items I mean something like Mage plate with low str requirement or sacred armor with high strength requirement but much higher armor value. Personally I am in favor of that with or without runewords.
So basically you are suggesting to either salvage them or use as a “variable item” with base stats higher than the rest of grade items and lesser requirements?
Legendary (or as they were called in Diablo 1 and 2 Uniques) and Set Items had sockets in Diablo 2, hell the Griswold Set was 4 items with a combined number of 12 sockets, you just could not make runewords out of them.
Runeword could only be made from Common (or White) items.
And they are not the same as crafting an item either, the items basic stats had an impact on the end product, if it was a weapon with Superior +15% damage it would end up with the damage rolled on it by the runeword plus 15% damage.
But it goes further, a runeword for all weapons, could be made in for example a Mace or an Axe, changing to exact weapon and even further there were multiple types of Maces and Axes, making it even more diverse.
I personally liked the runeword (and the whole D2 itemization) allot.
Runewords caused Common items to be worth examining.
Magic items could be quite strong in one single region so worth looking at.
Rares could have more though lower prefixes on them making them again possibly usefull.
Uniques did not follow the same rules as Magic and Rares, so they stood out in one way or another.
Set Items didn’t follow basic rules either, though usually were worse and needed the set bonus to become viable.
What they did in the demo were no runewords to my personal taste, seemed more like expanding the style of Unique Jewels (D2) or Legendary Potions (D3).
Didn’t like it at all.
I hope they look at the runewords in Diablo 2 and use that system as a base, so Runeword make a Common item into an item with Unique powers while retaining the properties that were on the base item.
In diablo 2 the new list of 1.10 runewords had many OP runewords in them however and I would like some more balance between Uniques, Sets and Runewords in D4.
Not really, realize you know rarity could determine number of sockets, but still don’t think of Runewords as craftable uniques myself, to me they are an item type in their own right.
However using runes in this way would make item quality matter more (hoping they will put this in and make White relevant), if someone would use it that is.
I personally don’t think that what I saw in the demo, will become a viable alternative to a Unique/Legendary with 2 sockets or even 1 without sockets.
And I don’t think it will feel like a finished item.
I don’t even see a link between the D2 Runeword and the D4 Runeword except it involving runes, D2 runeword actually made an item, this is enhancing an item.
To me that system is more akin to things like Legendary Potions.
Guess I never was a fan of when you / then you stuff, just like long term cooldown (even short term isn’t my thing).
But there is a reason why I say the D2 itemization system is the best I ever saw and I’ve played allot of games, while the balancing wasn’t always right, the system imo was.