This topic is an update of the old one with ideas that are in line with the changes in Diablo 4 2.0
Aspects and Skills
This is the most impactful change, with it the intention is to propose a game that is a little more balanced and focused on the character’s progression, regardless of the leveling speed or anything else. The idea is to focus on the character’s skills and leave the items to have powers that modify the gameplay in general and not to be focused on directly modifying the character’s skills.
Incorporating Aspects into Skill Trees
The aspects of each class now make up the skill tree, the aspects that are linked to a skill now make up its passive skill branch, opening up even more the possibility of customizing the skill tree, and the skills that modify one or more skills become generic passive skills of the skill group they modify (if they are part of more than one group, e.g. basic and ultimate skills, they are within the main one or the one that makes the most sense). The character’s level will increase from 60 to 80 (or 70, at the developers’ discretion) so that the points in the new skills can be distributed, thinking for example that each player uses 5 new passives that came from the aspects and distributes at least 3 points in each one to increase their level and spends 5 points to reach them (depending on how the tree branching will be).
Itemization and Crafting
The idea does not stray from the initial one where the objective is to take some of the focus away from legendary items and distribute it to Magic and Rare items.
Changes to Affixes
Magic Items
- Magic items are the items with the most dynamic number of affixes, and can contain 1 to 3 affixes.
Rare Items
- Rare items now have 4 affixes (maximum number that an item without being Unique can have).
Legendary Items
- Legendary items are now items that have GA, the change in this case is that they are no longer ancestral and become just legendary.
Aspects
Aspects that are not linked to a class now become Unique items. For example, the aspects:
- Aspect of Accursed Touch
- Aspect of Concussive Strikes
- Aspect of Disobedience
- Aspect of Elements
- Aspect of Frosty Strides
- Aspect of Inner Calm
- Aspect of Might
- Aspect of Retribution
- Aspect of Shared Misery
- Aspect of Slaughter
- Aspect of the Crowded Sage
- Aspect of the Deflecting Barrier
- Aspect of the Expectant
- Aspect of the Protector
- Aspect of the Umbral
- Conceited Aspect
- Edgemaster’s Aspect
- Eluding Aspect
- Exploiter’s Aspect
- Ghostwalker Aspect
- Needleflare Aspect
- Protecting Aspect
- Rapid Aspect
- Smiting Aspect
- Wind Striker Aspect
- Starlight Aspect
- Aspect of Adaptability
- Juggernaut’s Aspect
All become unique items, distributed among item types (melee weapons, staffs, wands, bows and crossbows, helmets, breastplates, boots, gloves, rings, amulets and shields / totems / foci). Not all aspects necessarily need to become Unique items, here a more detailed analysis can be made and the most important aspects for the character builds can be verified to be implemented.
The others would be “off” and can be included later.
Removal of Weapon Lock by Class
To ensure that all generic aspects come into play and with a more consistent destruction in items, Melee weapons can now be equipped by all classes (including scythes, daggers and the new gleives), Shields can now be used by all classes, a class like the Barbarian for example would suffer a penalty for using shields and would be unable to use skills that require dual wielding, a penalty of this type can be at the player’s discretion whether or not it will be useful to him. Staves, wands, totems and foci continue to be shared only by the classes that can already use them.
Affixes
To ensure that the game does not become unbalanced and that the right affixes can be present on the items they should be, they now have some blocks and some now only appear on specific items. For example, weapons no longer have affixes like “+ life”.
Items also have their own group of affixes, such as:
– Helmets: Primary attribute, Attributes, Armor, +% Resistances to elements, +% Resistances to all elements, More life, +% Cooldown reduction, +% Resource generation, +% Berserker duration (example for Barbarian), +% Increased healing, +x Specific skills, etc.
– Chests: Primary attributes, Attributes, Armor, +% Resistances to elements, +% Damage reduction, Thorns, More life, +x Specific skills, etc.
– Gloves: Primary attribute, Attributes, +% Critical strike chance, +% Critical strike damage, +% Attack speed, Stun chance, Lifesteal
– Pants: Primary attribute, Attributes, Armor, +% Elemental resistances, +% Damage reduction, Thorns, More health, +% Dodge chance, +x Specific skills, etc.
– Boots: Primary attribute, Attributes, Elemental resistances, +% Movement speed, +% Dodge chance, -% Control effect duration, +% Chance to avoid control effect, etc.
– Rings and Amulets: Primary Attribute, Attributes, All Attributes, +% Attributes, +% Elemental Resistances, +% All Elemental Resistances, More Health, +% Cooldown Reduction, +% Resource Generation, Increased Healing, +% Critical Hit Chance, +% Critical Hit Damage, +% Base Damage, +% Attack Speed, Life Steal, +x Skills
– Weapons: Primary Attribute, +% Base Damage, +% Physical Damage, +% Basic Skill Damage, +% Main Skill Damage, +% Ultimate Skill Damage, +% Damage to Vulnerable Enemies, +% Damage to Bleeding Enemies, Critical Hit Chance, Critical Hit Damage, Attack Speed, Life Steal, +% Stun Chance, +% Vulnerability Chance, +% Bleeding Chance, +% / +x Resource Generation, etc.
– Focuses / Totems: Primary attribute, +% Elemental damage, +% Resource reduction, +% Cooldown reduction, +% Barrier generation, +% Freeze chance, +% Shock chance, +% Ignite chance, etc.
– Shields: Armor, More blocking, +x% Damage reduction, +% Chance to avoid control effect, +% Resistances to elements, etc.
(I used as a basis the attributes that I see in the barbarian items and some others that I imagine they have in the items that drop from other classes, just to be able to exemplify)
The idea here is to make each piece of armor have its role, rings and amulets are the most versatile items, as they have a larger roll of affixes that we can obtain, for weapons the focus is to leave only the affixes related to damage and combat, excluding the affixes that increase life for example.
The reintroduction of non-primary attributes in items is to help with, for example, increasing resistance to elements for classes that do not use Intelligence, for example, increasing the chance of critical damage for classes that do not use Dexterity, or increasing armor for classes that do not have Strength as their primary attribute.
About affix blocks. The idea behind this block is to prevent items from coming with too many affixes from the same “group”, such as Offensive and Defensive, for example, with the intention of ensuring that the distribution of affixes is more balanced. To prevent, for example, a weapon from having “+30% Damage / +57% Basic Ability Damage / +26% Critical Hit Damage / +41% Vulnerability Damage”, items now have an affix block, when it already has two affixes such as “+30% Damage / +57% Basic Ability Damage” it can no longer have an affix that increases damage (except for what is added through Tempering), the same applies to elemental resistance affixes, making it impossible for an item to drop with “+30% Fire Resistance / +30% Ice Resistance / +30% Lightning Resistance / +30% Poison Resistance”.
Upgrading Items
Tempering
Tempering continues to work in practically the same way, just adjusted to the new item hierarchy.
Magic and rare items can only have one tempering affix added and the number of attempts is reduced to a maximum of 4, depending on the number of affixes the item has (a magic item can have 1 to 3 chances while a legendary item will always have 4). A legendary item will always have 4 + the number of GA it has, which can reach up to 8 attempts.
Tempering recipes only have 3 modifiers each, reducing the chances of affixes being repeated countless times and leaving the weight of the tempering to the “level” of the affix (variation of the statuses)
Turning Magic Items into Rare Items
In order to make magic items more relevant and increase the diversity of the game’s Itemization, we will have the opportunity to turn magic items into rare items in this item model.
When we get a magic item with 3 affixes (the maximum for them), we will have the option to turn them into rare items. To do this, we must go to the Blacksmith, where we have the option to maximize the item. Maximizing the magic item has the cost of maximizing level 4. When we do this, instead of the item receiving an increase of an affix, the Blacksmith will transform the magic item into a rare item, adding a random affix to it. This new affix will respect the affix rule mentioned above. Furthermore, the item cannot have another enchanted affix (if it has not been done yet). Once transformed, the item can only have the new affix that was modified in the Occultist. If the player had already modified the item in the Occultist before upgrading, the new affix will be blocked and he or she will only be able to modify the affix that was already modified.
Magic items with 1 and 2 affixes can also be maximized to add an affix, but they will not be transformed into rare items because they have not reached the 4 affixes. Therefore, it is up to the player to decide whether it is worth it or not.
Transforming Rare items into Legendary
In this new model, the maximum number of maximizations that a non-legendary item (ancient ancient) can have is removed, so now rare items can reach maximization level 12. A rare item that obtains the three bonuses applied to the same affix will be transformed into a legendary item and this affix will become a GA, gaining the maximum roll for it.
Ancestral, Sacred Items and more
In general, I think it is possible to use the concepts of ancestral and sacred items in the game but with different approaches, making the name just another nomenclature for the item, not meaning that currently they represent just a nomenclature because now the ancestral item will indicate that the item has a GA, however with the changes I mentioned above the “ancestral” would fall into disuse because the items would only be “legendary”.
Ancestral
Ancestral items are extremely powerful and rare items to obtain, these items have in addition to the 4 affixes, random modifiers that cannot be modified through the occultist but that can gain the maximization bonus. Ancestral items will always be legendary items and the modifiers are for example:
– Increased x% of bleed damage speed
– X% chance of breaking the target’s armor
– X% chance of gaining +x% armor when attacking
Sacred
Holy items are powerful and difficult to obtain items, forged with the help of the magic of the Celestial Paradise. These items have their main attributes (damage, armor and resistances) higher than items that are not holy. Ancestral items can be Holy, magical and rare items have a small chance of being Holy.
Corrupted
While Holy items were forged with the help of the magic of the Celestial Paradise, Corrupted items are items touched by demons. These weapons corrupted by the Burning Hells have the same rarity as Holy items, their affixes always have the maximum roll, but cannot be changed in any way by the occultist, that is, their affixes are fixed and with the maximization he only receives the bonus of changing from level 4 to 5, from 8 to 9 and from level 12. Ancient Items can be Corrupted, Holy items cannot be Corrupted.
Original:
I just wanted to bring this point of Itemization back into the discussion because I think it is a point that has a lot of room for improvement and is something very important for the game.