Hey everyone, let me just start by saying this will be a pretty long post, I cut out most of it and decided to only post my section on itemization to maybe bring some light onto what made Diablo 2 so good. I’m passionate on the ARPG genre but I’ve been annoyed lately because I keep reading people post or say how diablo 4 will be a mix of diablo 2 and diablo 3 and that simply isn’t even close to being true. I think most people don’t really understand what makes an ARPG have good itemization and why it was so good in Diablo 2, just adding an attribute system to D4 isn’t even remotely enough to be compared to Diablo 2 because the reason the game had good mechanics was how everything was implemented together as a WHOLE. The core game was different. Itemization alone isn’t going to fix items if the rest of the game isn’t effected by it (like monsters, difficulty, etc). This may seem like a hate thread towards D3/D4 but I promise It’s not, I’m just taking comparisons at the start and putting it all together to try to explain why D2 Itemization is vastly superior IMO.
I’m going to use a duel wield Barbarian as an example for both games and compare the stats the build would use and explain why you would use them, and go into more detail why the design was done well later.
In Diablo 2 you had these useful stats for that specific character/build :
Attack rating : If you were any kind of physical build and you lacked attack rating you would find your self missing A LOT of your attacks. It was a very
important stat that helped your damage by limiting how often you missed. But, was also wasted if you had too much.
Max or Min Damage : DAMAGE
% Damage : DAMAGE
Crushing Blow : DMG based on enemy mob life (very strong on bosses).
Open Wounds : Causes bleeding to target.
Deadly Strike : Grants the attack double damage (a crit basically).
Whenever you had an item that gave one of the 3 stats above it was always given as a % chance to occur on your attack. You can get 100% chance if you wanted to.
Life Leech : Theres % Life leech, life on hit, life on kill. The standard. Not usable on any casters only Physical.
Mana Leech : specific moobs in d2 can drain your mana to zero in seconds so mana leech was always useful.
Faster hit recovery (FHR) : A fundamentally important stat for everyone. If you had 0 FHR on any class you will get stun locked easily and die.
Defense - If you had low defense, physical attacks will take half your life from a white mob. Useful no matter what class.
Life - Every class needed to stack life.
Res + Max Res - If you didn’t have Max res in Hell in D2 you were a walking corpse waiting to flop. But in Diablo 2 you can extend how much your max res caps at. Being even more useful.
Absorb - Absorbs damage from a specific element, taking reduced elemental damage from that specific element.
FRW - Gotta run fast.
Chance on hit x - Chance for your attacks to do X, Ushually to cast a skill that your class normally wouldn’t have access to. For example, “25% chance to cast lvl 28 Glacial Spike on attack” Useful to add effects such as slow/freeze and its badass.
Chance on striking x - The same thing as above except cast when you’re struck by an attack.
Attack speed - In D2 there are a couple ways to increase your attack speed but for this example attack speed is hard locked into the BASE of the item.
Ethereal - Renders your item unable to be repaired (so it will break eventually) but greatly increases base damage. (more on this later)
Sockets.
There are actually more stats then above, but let’s keep this on one page yea?
In Diablo 3 :
Strength - just stack more damage
DPS - just get the biggest number, more damage
Crit chance - just stack more damage
Crit damage - just stack more damage
Attack speed - just stack more damage
Life per hit/leech - your main defense stat so you can do more damage
Vit - stack more hp but it wont matter because you have insane leech anyway
Socket - more damage or defenses
Resource cost - spam more freely
X effect - Adds an effect to your skills that changes the way its used. Or a proc for more damage.
Keep the above in mind for the rest of the post.
First and foremost It’s important to understand how BREAKPOINTS work In Diablo 2. Breakpoints work by instead of giving you a % increase in attack speed (like how it works in D3) instead you need to hit specific # of FHR before you actually gain a boost. For example, The barbs FHR breakpoints are :
0%, 7%, 15%, 27%, 48%, 86%, 200%. So if you had 65% total faster hit recovery on your gear you would have the 5th breakpoint (being 48%). Important stats like FHR, Attack speed, block rate and Cast rate work around breakpoints. Why is this important? Because every class benefits from the same stat making it a universally useful stat but at the same time there’s no real need to stack the crap out of it. You can pick to go with the 4th breakpoint or the 5th, or even go for the last one. It’s all up to you and how you can be flexible with your gear. If you wanted you can sacrifice some damage on your sorc to cast faster. Now, I understand Breakpoints might seem like an outdated mechanic but the point is you had choices for your character in stats that weren’t just DAMAGE and are not worth stacking like crazy. In diablo 3 the only stat that was useful on everyone was Vit. And lets be honest, defense is a dog poop stat since they gave some classes flat % DR (which is a prime example of terrible and lazy game design btw). Breakpoints were essential for FEELING character progression, there’s a reason In diablo 2 (and path of exile) you feel super sloppy and slow at Level 1. IT’S ALMOST LIKE THAT’S THE POINT OF AN ARPG TO PROGRESS. In diablo 3 at level 1 you had smooth animations and I honestly still cannot tell a difference between a lvl 1 and max level character in D3, you FEEL zero progression to your character.
In D2 Attack speed breakpoints change depending on the BASE ITEM of your main hand weapon (and some other factors). It looks like they are doing something similar in Diablo 4 with the most recent update, weapons have “Very slow attack speed” or “fast attack speed” text instead of % AS like they did in Diablo 2. That is a very good change IMO moving away from every stat being a % gain is a huge plus. In diablo 3 more is ALWAYS BETTER. Having every stat providing a % gain to your character provides zero choice, is a lazy way to design the game and is just flat out boring. You need to have diminishing returns somewhere or the game will turn into STACK FEST like Diablo 3 is.
Why would you ever make a Barbarian twice in Diablo 3? You wouldn’t.
The biggest choice you can make in D2 around your character is deciding what you want your character to excel at. Boss killing? Basic mob farming? Magic find? Just a play through? Deciding what you want your character to excel at will change what stats you value more for your character. This simply does not exist in Diablo 3 in any depth because everyone can do everything well, there’s zero consequences for any choices. The reason this is important because it adds value to specific stats for some players while being completely useless to others. Stats like Magic find, Open wounds, Crushing blow, Critical Strike, chance on striking, def, Absorb %.
Notice how there’s a balance between stats? In diablo 3 you simply get the bigger number no matter what.
One of the best features in D2 IMO is making random white items have value and be useful, and some specifics being really rare. A plain white item can be worth more then your entire character. Let that sink in for a second. I’m sure you all heard about “Runewords” by now but without going into detail these are basically “Crafted items”. Every runeword needs a base first in which you can turn into a runeword. For runewords to work they need to be in a specific base and have a specific number of sockets. A white item can only roll a few stats. Ethereal, Sockets, and Superior. Ethereal (eth) gives armor more defense while being unable to be repaired, and gives more base damage while being unable to be repaired. Superior can also roll additional def or damage which caps at 15%. Catching on yet? Since runewords were very strong getting a good base is very important, as important as the final item itself. Some runewords also give the “Indestructable” stat which takes away Etherals negative property. Making a top tier runeword weapon In one base in some cases provide more then double damage in another base. The only other ARPG that made white items useful was Path of Exile. It blows my mind how more games aren’t designing their items similarly. This adds value to trading, it adds value to white items aka clutter, it adds more choice for the player. Removing white items in general or just making it drop for no reason is just lazy and pointless.
Uniques, Legendarys, Class specific items.
I’ve heard a lot about people saying how class specific items are bad and I completely disagree. I think the devs of D2 shaped all itemization around class-specific items and here’s why.
Sorcs had wands (weps), Barbs and Druids and helms, Paladins had shields etc… The specific class items were only locked to one type and it didn’t mean you HAD to use them either, and they were locked to one of the 4 main slots (helm, chest, wep, offhand) because the items were designed like this, the devs designed items in the other slots (boots, jewelry, belt, gloves) to be more usable and open for almost everyone. Almost every unique glove belt ring or boots in the game can be used on ANY CLASS IN SOMEWAY SHAPE OR FORM. The only real difference would be if you were a caster or physical or If you prioritized magic find, res, defenses, DR, FRW, FHR etc the list goes on. Making these slots more customizable and you can tailor them around your other items.
In diablo 2 a unique ring… let’s use “ravenfrost” for example can be used for EVERY CLASS. It’s useful for everybody defensively (and offensively for some), but for the legendary items in Diablo 4 (from what I saw in the update) they seemed like they were designed for one class in mind without having any restriction regardless to what item slot it was. That is my biggest problem with Itemization. It’s like they are giving the illusion of customization by designed the items for what THEY intend for us to use it for. In diablo 2 there are builds that can be completely designed around one single stat from an item (for example +1 whirlwind. Yes, this one stat gives any class wearing it the ability to use whirlwind).
At first the idea of items giving you unique bonuses. Let’s use “boots of the chilling frost” for example : “your chill effects will trigger freeze 25% faster but you deal 30% less damage” seems interesting because it changes your playstyle a bit but at the same time It makes the item entirely specific. Only usable for one class, and one build (which is fine as long as every legendary in the game isn’t like this). They just seem entirely underwhelming and super niche. I think it’s better game design keeping bonuses like that tied to your character and making items stats more vastly usable.
End Game
Diablo 2 having better end game is because of how the game was community driven and designed around multiplayer, how difficult it was to level, how rare items were, thus giving value to trading making it take time to actually finish your character. This is the entire point of my post, everything should matter and be relevant. When your character is finish you had that “show off” factor and can showcase it in PVP. This is what this “end game” you speak of should be the center of in any LIVING BREATHING ARPG (Path of Exile is a perfect example). In diablo 3 none of that matters at all … but yes there’s more to do technically than diablo 2 with rifts, but you gear 100x faster and it just leads to no where. However this doesn’t mean things can improve because let’s be honest online games have changed overtime. I have no doubt blizzard can create good end game but if the whole idea of meaningfulness isn’t there then it won’t be a reason alone for players to stay.
Rarity.
I’m going to keep this one brief. Items are too common in Diablo 3. Period. Make legendary more rare in D4 by a large margin (atleast 5x) or at least add something that’s super rare that’s desired by everyone. I’ve played Diablo 2 for 20 years and I still haven’t found a single Zod rune. Maybe one day.
I understand I’m probably not the target audience for this franchise anymore but I wanted to maybe help shine a light on some players who wonder why everyone loved Diablo 2 so much.
TLDR : Doesn’t matter because you D3 fans are in heavy denial and will miss the entire point of the post. Diablo 3 was the biggest let down in the ARPG genre because they completely went their own route for it. They turned it into a game for cow clickers and you are all surprised they released a MOBILE diablo game? Diablo 3 is literally aimed for gamers like that. It doesn’t make it a bad game just different compared to other ARPGs and heavily more casual, and lacking any kind of depth (which is why in this post I pointed out all the depth in itemization) There is no disagreeing or agreeing with this It. It’s fact and you’d be completely in denial if you think otherwise. It was blizzard’s intention from the start, and with Diablo 4 it’s clear they don’t want to do that again… they want to make it somewhere between then two. They see it, we see it, why can’t you?
