i just think d4 dev team dont have the experience and talent
this is why this game already have so many weak feature 
that what happens blizzard activision you dont pay the good talent so they leave and now you are stuck with young talent developer with limited experience and this make very basic game
1 Like
The attack and defense isn’t the goal though.
Attack and defense is just for minor incremental boost of character power. It’s a boiling down of the basic stats of items to simplified version that doesn’t really impact the complexity of items.
Unless the focus is the lvl 40 game.
Like I mentioned before. If a lower level item has better alternative stats than attack/defense, then you’d still consider using it even if a higher level item has higher attack/defense.
The incremental bonuses can’t be as big as D3 for that to work though. Like D3 500 main stat + vit just can’t be replaced and you aren’t getting sub 70 items at any point. And the game has to actually be relevant sub 40 in D4.
You need bonuses that are effective to a character, that aren’t so strong they can’t be replaced, but not so weak that it’s just replace with higher attack/defense gear. It’s tricky to do.
What if items are just better for some classes, Stone Fist gloves without looking up the stats, Barbs geta better Def bonus using them as apposed to say a caster class. Stone Fist gloves maybe a bad item to pick.
The basic idea of items that are great for X Build on one class but still could help a different class not like a Witching Hour belt.
The way the item in the demo gave the Frost Bolt 3 bolts but a Barb may get a bit wider effect on the Ground Cone attack 10-20%.
You’re 100% right, Diablo isn’t all about the items.
It’s a core function of gameplay.
There are many other elements that are so critical - skill trees, the vibe of the environments, quest building, end-game, combat fluidity, etc. - and these should be enjoyable without items hampering them.
It’s one system that does make for a better game and creating a balance of complexity and depth without min/max and whipping out tools and spreadsheets allows other elements to shine as well.
Do we all agree that legendary affixes need to take a slot of stat affixes? That, to me, seems to be one of the largest differentiators between uniques in poe and legendaries in diablo 3. I didn’t play much d2 so i cant speak to that.
I don’t want uniques in every single inventory slot. Having uniques in every slot actually hampers build diversity if uniques are so much better than rares, because if a skill you want to use just doesn’t have as good of uniques as another skill, it just can’t compete.
1 Like
Yeah, that is a very important point. Different types of content allows for different builds to rise to the top.
At least it does sound like Blizzard realizes that the onesided focus on timed GRifts was a mistake.
On a somewhat related note I think monster resistances (but not immunities) should be brought back. Resistances both adds a counter to the otherwise beneficial strategy of focusing on only 1 dmg type (easier to gear, easier to spend talents on etc), and allows different builds to shine more against different types of enemies.
Not a fan of immunities though. While resistances gives you a choice; kill enemies slower (but easier to get more dmg) or have multiple dmg types, immunities risk taking that choice away, by forcing you toward multiple dmg types.
This is a good point!
I like the idea that legendary affixes won’t be too good. Present possibilities that white/blue/yellow items each have the potential to become a better item for a build.
I like to make a build, make it stronger through equipment; i found a legendary item, great so happy more dmg or survivability + skills or whatever improvement. Not make a build and hunt for legendaries, damn still not working; when will i find the skill mod item… = frustration.
As the original post says, playing a sorceress in D2 and getting through frames with faster casting that was a big feeling of improvement (not necessarily through legendaries), growing slow with patience, reserving skill-stat points…but now i found a magic blue ring which gives me 100 mana and makes live so much easier; moved from casting a spell every now and then to throw a lot, instead of hitting with the stave YAY!
THIS WAS FUN, not hunting legendaries to make builds work.
If, as i saw on some youtube videos the skills are permanent and i find a legendary which mods a skill i dont use, will it make me happy?
If i change my build completely everytime i get legendary to adapt to the new power, will that make me enjoy the game?
If i want to use more than 6 skills (console bound) and i cant, that will frustrate a D1 and D2 strictly PC player. Because i will not be able to use more or less, it will just not be optimal. I would say no one plays a game without at least trying to optimize.
Another thing was getting to hell dificulty and feeling a HELL of a difficulty, trying to go through it and achieving it, what a pleasure. Endless scaling step by step=lustlacking.
Hope there are still people that find this to be important for a Diablo game
This is the feeling that’s incredibly important.
Instead of improving my cast rate incrementally from 5% → 6%, adding items to build to a larger shift is just so much more rewarding.
Establishing thresholds and breakpoints are not only great for planning builds properly, but also for that ultimate feeling of improvement.
I checked out that video as well, I love it!
Is anyone talking about the itemization in the Diablo 2 mod “Median XL”? If not, I hope you start, because it’s what we need. DON’T BE AFRAID OF MAKING US THINK.
Unfortunately, the right itemization system for a Diablo game eludes modern blizzard developers. I have no faith they can get it right. They are too lazy or too focused on what will appeal to the casual masses to do their own game justice.
1 Like
Great post. I wasn’t to sold on the loss of primary stats but how detailed of or realistic of an RPG do we want in D4? (We can get this from PoE already).
So bar item equip checkers what do primary stats bring to D4 that we couldn’t just achieve with item affixes & suffixes when combined with Attack/Defense?
I’m starting to believe much of what we want can be achieved through a in-depth affixes & suffixes system.
Why I’m leaning towards this is unlike PoE D4 is going to have define character classes with there defined skills & very little hybridization between the primary classes. This means Str/Int/Dex have less overall meaning as in D4 each class is really only going to care about a single primary Stat (maybe bar Druid). So change the primary stat from Str/Int/Dec to a single “Attack” doesn’t have much difference bar a different name.
Again bar a item equip checker what effect to the primary stats play in diablo?
Str - Damage, item equip checker (eg. Items that require Str).
So other then a equip checker Str’s effect can be achieved by Attack.
Dex - Chance to hit enemy, enemy’s chance to hit you, Dex weapon damage & item equip checker.
A question for Dex is Hit Chance? How are they handling it for auto attacks & skills? So far skills look like 100% chance to hit so long as the skillshot hits the enemy. Auto attack not sure if still a Dice roll to Hit? Or 100% chance to hit so long a within weapon/melee range or projectile hits. If no dice roll to Hit Dex becomes just the same as Str in meaning & Attack can be used.
Int - Damage, resistance, item equip checker
Again except fir resistance Int again functions the same a Str/Dex.
Okay this is a generalization of primary stat. Really D1 worked because the classes where blank starting slates that if wanted could end up as either the warrior, ranged, mage gameplay (Much like PoE are a type of blank slate that you build).
D2 started to head in the direction of class favoured primary stats. I’m sure no sorceress favoured str as a stat.
D3 tried primary stats further to class selection making the other primary stats basically useless to other classes.
And really the most interesting & fun stats to play with have always been the affixes & suffixes with was always changeable allowing for build experimentation. Also many of the benefits Primary stats provide can be achieved for you by affixes & suffixes. I believe if a in-depth affixes & suffixes system can be implemented which can achieve what we are after with stat customizable with regard to builds.
Next regarding Normal, Magic Rare tiered items for endgame we can make these the endgame customizable/crafted items of value. What I’m thinking is NMRs have more sockets the Ledendaries, Ancients & Mythics. So LAMs can have complex Runewords because the most sockets they can have is 2. Where as NMRs can have up to 6 sockets allowing for Runewords larger then just 2 runes. Also we coukd have combination of Runewords, Gems, Jewels in the 1 item.
So endgame LAMs are looted for there Ledendary effects & NMRs are looted for there socket combinations giving value for all item tiers.
Just an idea, but continuing the train of thought regarding more interesting affixes and normal/magic/rares being competitive vs legendaries, would adding a system to the game where affixes can be extracted and imprinted into other items (except legendaries), and improved to a certain extent make all these non-legendary items more important commodities than they were in d3? Such that the potential of rares could outstrip legendaries on the affix department, with the balancing limitation that normal /magic/rare items dont have the unique abilities found on legendaries. This way, not everything equipped would be legendary during the endgame. Of course, improving non legendaries using this system shouldn’t be easy and part of the endgame grind. This could promote more customization and prominence of having non legendaries in our equipment for d4.
who remembers the launch of loot 2.0 and items like kridershot “later yangs recurve” or starmetal kukri “later sacred harvester” to name some of the stronger items and then some of the weaker like deathseers cowl or skycutter?
(from all other items do not matter to useless)
then d4 demo hydra spawn or that lighning trap proc and so on?
(random somewhere on the map, how is the dmg calculated/scaled, cooldown/proc etc)
just talking about legendary powers and their synergies later on… what can i say there are a ton of feedback threads with ideas for legendary powers for d3 already and detailed posts how to make items relevant…
@Pyrocaine love the idea of affixes/suffixes extraction then transplant onto another item. Also lile the idea of limit the transplant to only the NMRs tiered items. This might be a great way of collecting great rolled affixes off items that otherwise might not be used. Although I would probably limit the transplanting to 1 time only.
But this starts to get into the crafting side of the game which we know nothing about bar that they are thinking of a crafting system to add. And I think this is an important aspect to also be discussing about with itemization as they both play into & effect each other.
This is the one aspect I’ve latched onto when thinking about NMRs tiered items & them having value at endgame other then savalage into crafting base materials.
So ehy not have NMRs as the item that you will use after item customization/crafting. So NMRs endgame value becomes that are they a good base item that can be expanded upon. The best aspect of this is this gives endgame value to these items beyond the value dependent on stats. Making their value actually independent of stats but dependent on number of sockets & type of sockets (modification slots & slot types).
The next question is what does craft mean in D4? And what can we actually do with crafting? Especially craftings relevants to endgame.
Some Crafting ideas:
- addition/removal/transplanting of affixes & suffixes (really love the transplant idea Pyrocaine).
- addition/removal of sockets/socket types.
- addition/removal/transplanting of Ledendary effects.
- upgrade of item rarity.
- item gambling (producing unidentified items).
- rerolling item affixes/suffixes.
- removing gems, jewels, runes.
- creation of gems, jewels, runes.
- salvaging runes from runewords.
1 Like
I suck at math, so I can’t hope to be smart here, but there is one thing I know for sure: if they take the math out of Diablo, they hurt its longevity very badly, because it will become boring very quickly.
I usually struggle with build planning, but I wouldn’t want it any other way. PoE was intimidating for a long time to me, but once you spend some time with it, it starts to make sense, and you get better at it.
D4 will be rated M, so why would Blizz want to dumb it down to kids level?
1 Like
I just wanted to highlight these, because I found these points to be the most important to me. More below the quotes.
I’m not sure about trading, if it should be in the game at all, but it obviously will be in it, since it’s such a social game now, and anyway trading was a part of Diablo since the beginning. What I don’t like is the ability to just buy your end game gear. That hurts longevity too. You can do that in PoE as well, and I don’t really like that. Once you get your gear for orbs, the drive to go out and get better gear diminishes.
An auction house should definitely not be the solution. I can’t really think of an appropriately limiting system for trading, but others could perhaps. It should be much harder to acquire legendary and mythic items via trading.
The special item to allow one item for trading is a good idea. Also I like the local marketplace idea too. These together could work very well.
Stats should definitely be in the game, but as others said before, maybe stat reqs should go. I’ve never been a fan of that either. What more, I’d like them to bring back putting points into stats too. I was kind of shocked when I found out that I couldn’t put points into them in D3, and it still bothers me if I think about it. It was just another idiot-prood move from the devs.
While I agreed with you concerning rerolling stats on items, it should still be a part of the game, only it should be much more expensive. Maybe it should be tied to events or more individual items than just gems and essences.
What about a different take on the auction house, more of a trading guild idea.
No real money, only in game gold. Gold will probably have to be account bound like in d3 for this to work. The gold won’t buy the item, but will be used as a gold sink mechanic in-game (not the only one), items will need to be paid for with in-game gold each time a trade post is put up. Then someone can offer another item for it. They can have a duration limit imposed to keep items fresh and relevant. Maybe a maximum amount of items posted per account? Each item posted raises the cost until the limit is hit? Perhaps the type of item will have a minimum gold cost to post? Just spitballing ideas.
The trading post can be introduced mid-game somehow as well so players don’t have to wait until end game to trade. This can keep the atmosphere somewhat realistic. Perhaps even only seeing people’s trades when they are in the same instance as you? Idk