The only reason Engima was a issue in D2 was because of dupes. There would’ve been far less of them floating around if it wasn’t for that fact. Now, it might’ve been the end goal to get, but how many of you actually put it all together yourselves, yet alone the most expensive parts.
1 Like
The fun factor of creating a runeword, say CTA or HOTO was that you could gamble the rolls of the affixes.
If you get a perfect CTA with 6/6/4 was say worth more HRs than a low 2/1/1
a perfect 40% all res HOTO was worth more HRs than a low 30% all res HOTO.
You could basically gamble for good/perfect rolls and then trade for HRs again to craft again another item with good/perfect rolls and and perma-trade & profit this way lol.
Similar to an addicting casino once you risk and profit, you wanna keep on risking your earned currency/crafting in a cycle to profit even more
Damn that greedy Gheeds…
i get, that enhanced white items would not appear very appealing without a cool name or a pretty color
but imagine using like 6 different runes on an item, you could actually even above any system that i know, create your own passive skills 
thats nice imo
and as a very creative player i bet i would prefer it over 6 affix rares, many times
but it depends on the pool of runes
I did make a few self-found higher end runewords.
Then again I did play about 6-8 hours a day and 7 days a week, I guess you could say I was quite addicted.
Never found a Jah though so without trading no enigma for me.
But even as really rare, some of the runewords just out did the uniques to much and even ruined the itemization of D2.
Before 1.10 a Cruel Ethereal magic weapon of Quickness could be godlike, especially because of socket quests, making Magic items still interesting to examine, chance was very small but it was there.
But with Runewords like Breath of the Dying and Grief, those things became just a nice relic.
I would like to see the return to Magic items can be awesome, eventhough the chance is minute.
Every item should have the potential to be more than just auto-salvage, even if 99.99999% of them will end up as salvage.
Maybe indeed if the runes become very different from what I saw, but as far as I understood the idea was when X happens (rune 1) than Y happens (rune 2).
While the amount of combinations might be allot (depending on the runepool size), I don’t see a passive skill system in their unless they will add things like when you use a firespell (Rune 1) type of runes, which I don’t think they will.
Why not? Well why would you choose “When you take a potion” (rune 1) when there will also be runes that you can trigger 24/7.
I would rather see this system using Legendary Jewels linking 2 Facets to have an effect, while still retaining the runewords as they were in D2.
Having Runewords match (not surpass) the strength of Unique/Legendary items.
And this new Legendary Jewel system as a finetuning system for Magic/Rare/Unique/Set or even Mythic.
1 Like
i suggested an other rune system very soon, after seeing the new runes
that would be different to D2, but still more unique than the current one
the problem about D2 system is probably…you just look up something in the internet and make it
its not much of creativity and discovering stuff
what, if any combination of different numbers of runes will lead to some unique effect, the more runes, the more affixes
and you can just try out 1000 of combinations
but i dont know, how to actually program such a system, without exploiting 1000 of people or trying to create a randomizer system, that makes its own combination effects
Let’s split this conversation to 2 parts:
Lore (Existence of Runes, items of types and charms) with mechanics (Consumables, sockets/items in sockets, etc)
In Diablo 2 & 3we had 2 mechanics I want to note:
- Items you collect, which can be merged and put into sockets to get affixes.
- Unique power on items.
(Going to ignore charm mechanics for this discussion)
We don’t want another D2, so these mechanics can remain, mutate or removed as devs see fit.
In D2 we also had Lore items:
- Runes & Rune words
- Charms
These we may want to retain, even if we change their use.
The devs suggested thus:
- Change Runes to be Cause & Effect
- Create mysterious item of legend (Consumable)
- Ignore charms
I suggest thus:
-
Charms will be socketed. Charms can have the cause and effect mechanic. Imagine adding a charm or two to your weapon:
1.1. Adding an effect charm gives your weapon extra effect.
1.2. Adding a Focus charm increases your charms effect, but narrows it to specific events.
This explains in words how they work, makes it feel logical, and doesn’t throw runes out. -
Consumable items of legend will be renamed to Runes.
Imagine etching a rune you’ve found on your weapon (Thus consumable), giving it power of legend!
2.1. Runes now can have sort of relationship of merging/rerolling toward the rune you try to get. (Maybe a scribe character will help us with that? Research?)
Thinking this out load here, and may post about it if we yield interesting results 
Would love to get feedback - reading here made me think of that, so good work and keep those thoughts shared. 
-
That is because finding the right socketed item with the right amount of sockets was a pain. Could solve by having them more available to purchase at vendors, especially in the leveling process.
-
Not enough runewords overall
-
Rarity of runesin general - They need to be more common if you are going to experiment, combined with #2, having more runewords that can be made at all levels.
charms could also be big again and maybe cover multiple sockets
making them exclusive to more slot items, which could be lower tier items
1 Like
They have merit… while you’re leveling your level 12 rare pants may be worse than the level 20 common pants you find… YAY!
Oh, you mean you want garbage to be viable end game? Get real. The only reason common, magic, and rare items drop is to add more piñata effect. You only need crafting mats from them, period.
Quit trying to turn an arcade style smash game into Dungeons&Dragons. Seriously you and the other white knights of D2 are going to be so so sad when D4 comes out and it’s an overhead view Diablo themed WoW.
I made some myself as well, but like you, played a TON, and it took a TON of effort to do self found. Trading is how I bet 99% of the player base got their top runes. And I’d be willing to bet that 95% of the top runes on the market were duped, the next 4% were from botters, and the last 1% from the guys like us who played all day, (I actually didn’t trade mine), yet were crazy enough to trade their self found high runes at what was a discount price with the real amount of time put into getting them. Considering dupers were selling them far below real value.
Thanks for the honesty tho! I also agree that many of the runewords were broken. I’m also pointing out that they were meant to be, but also weren’t meant to be everywhere like they were(thank hacking for that).
“Trading” meaning broke down and payed $5.99 a pop.
When you have the ability to farm “top rune words” what do you need to trade for? NOTHING BUT CASH!
Go back to D2
#nochanges
Only really really lazy people paid money for gear. Dupers were trading Jah/Ber for Shakos etc. Anyone who even really farmed D2 could easily trade for the runes but I assume you aren’t here for real discussion.
1 Like
my friend was buying a beast on ebay once, i remember xD
Thanks for the contructive and positive post!
Just posting my favorite variation on “runewords” that i’ve seen in any ARPG to date so far. Its super complex, in-depth, but easy to grasp.
The runewords in Median XL work as so: any item can have anywhere between 1 - 6 sockets. Insert jewels first, and then a specific rune last. For instance, putting “tal” in a weapon after inserting a jewel(s) first will yield the “Shark” runeword. So, if your weapon has 6 open sockets, you insert 5 jewels OF YOUR CHOICE first, and then the “tal” rune last. The item then inherits the properties of the Shark runework as well as the jewels that you inserted. Oh, and you can craft your own jewels. So, you can really dig into the customization of your item. Jewelcrafting even has its own system (which I won’t get into), but you dont NEED to opt into it. You can just insert junk jewels into your item before the rune depending if you’d like to min/max and invest in that item.
Im not looking for the D4 developers to copy this system verbatim, but it just goes to show how creative and complex you can be by synthesizing multiple systems together.
Thanks again!
1 Like
It seems that the D3 brain-afk virus spread way too far 
people wearing D2 logo on forums asking for simplicity and a garbage crafting system 
For real we know Blizzard is gonna simplify the game mechanics as they did with D3 so that even a 6 year old can beat the campaign on his own.
2 Likes
i think he is trolling
no feeding O:
Definetely 
Posting my reply again due troll burying it 
Let’s split this conversation to 2 parts:
Lore (Existence of Runes, items of types and charms) with mechanics (Consumables, sockets/items in sockets, etc)
In Diablo 2 & 3we had 2 mechanics I want to note:
- Items you collect, which can be merged and put into sockets to get affixes.
- Unique power on items.
(Going to ignore charm mechanics for this discussion)
We don’t want another D2, so these mechanics can remain, mutate or removed as devs see fit.
In D2 we also had Lore items:
- Runes & Rune words
- Charms
These we may want to retain, even if we change their use.
The devs suggested thus:
- Change Runes to be Cause & Effect
- Create mysterious item of legend (Consumable)
- Ignore charms
I suggest thus:
-
Charms will be socketed. Charms can have the cause and effect mechanic. Imagine adding a charm or two to your weapon:
1.1. Adding an effect charm gives your weapon extra effect.
1.2. Adding a Focus charm increases your charms effect, but narrows it to specific events.
This explains in words how they work, makes it feel logical, and doesn’t throw runes out. -
Consumable items of legend will be renamed to Runes.
Imagine etching a rune you’ve found on your weapon (Thus consumable), giving it power of legend!
2.1. Runes now can have sort of relationship of merging/rerolling toward the rune you try to get. (Maybe a scribe character will help us with that? Research?)
Thinking this out load here, and may post about it if we yield interesting results
Would love to get feedback - reading here made me think of that, so good work and keep those thoughts shared.
2 Likes
i actually like the idea of replacing the lame effect of current runes with charms and giving runes the oportunity to become real runewords again
especially if they were able to differ from the legendary item effects
3 Likes