So I’ve been playing D3 for a week or so and I can confidently say the D4 itemization, skill tree, and paragon system are INFINITELY better than the systems in D3.
In D3 I get handed a set of gear that is legit broken. I equip it and the necessary skills to use it. Then I stack crit chance, crit damage, and main stats and I’m done. There are a few other pieces of gear I need for some additional broken modifiers but they are small by comparison to the set bonus. Some builds you also need to stack CDR to make them work. So this is 3 variables at most to worry about besides main stats.
Also, in D3, the paragon system is literally +1 to character stats each level. It’s extremely boring and allows you to overcome almost any deficiency of your gear stats at high level, again devaluing your non set item gear pieces.
In D4 you have to worry about all these factors:
- Aspects on gear
- Skill point assignment
- Paragon aspects
- Paragon glyphs
- Paragon skill nodes
- Paragon main stat modifiers
- Skill % damage modifiers (for each skill type, basic, core, or a specific skill)
- Skill + point modifiers (example, +2 to hydra)
- Skill class + point modifiers (example, +2 to all skills)
- Damage to vulnerable
- Damage to different types of CC
- Main stats
There is a crazy list of things in D4 you have to worry about when making gear decisions versus D3 where you basically just equip the set you are told to use and then fiddle with some off pieces which mostly stack crit chance, crit damage, CDR, and main stats.
D4 is infinitely more complex of a game.
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D3 is literall get said 6 piece set bonus. Stack CDR, Crit hit damage, Crit, sure there are other to stack depending on build but those 3 are key regardless. D3 you had the option to extract legendary items powers and used as passive bonus.
D4 does offer more to the table when it comes with paragon because when i first heard paragon in D4. I was like well great they are keeping the infinitely scaling paragon like D3, but not glad they overhauled it to something better. Same with the skills actually have points now is a big step in the right way.
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D3 gearing goes like this.
Equip a class set
get the legs with the biggest multipliers that compliment that set
do billions and trillions of damage
combat is fun but it’s totally braindead
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The systems are nearly identical.
The only differences are technicalities and jargon. There are no fundamental differences between how player power works in D3 and how it works D4.
If you can’t see that you’re probably weren’t born with a full deck of playing cards like the average person.
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Wrong again. You can mix and match every slot in D4. In D3 you need at least 5 slots from a set to be relevant.
You again, are just mad, that D4 is better than D3.
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To be fair, making itemization worse than D3 would be essentially impossible.
D4 itemization still does not seem good.
I am less convinced that the D4 skill tree is better than D3 skill runes though. Way fewer options.
D4 paragon is of course much better than D3 paragon. Again, would be damn hard to not make it better.
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Just gonna quote this and let it ride.
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Another mad D3 fan who can’t see that sets ruined the game and that D4 is infinitely better because you can mix and match gear much more freely.
Yes some aspects are required for each build but that is usually 1 slot. It doesn’t completely fix 5 of your slots like in D3.
For example, all I really need to make rogue twisting blades work is 1 aspect from a dungeon. Sure I can boost the damage with other aspects but there are a lot of choices.
I can also choose to use shields or movement increasing aspects. So I can be more defensive or more offensive.
D4 is just a better game in almost every way.
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It’s not even a contest. D3 is a really low mark to shoot for, however.
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sets being declared not present in d4 at launch, were the reason i bought d4. i don’t want, at all, a d3 clone. especially concerning sets. i prefer much more how the aspects system works, that means be free to create our own ‘sets’ at will. the entire synergy of aspects in relation to our own skills and gear offers constant variation and opportunities and choice, as opposed to being forced this or that mandatory item in this or that slot making any thought about gearing up and builds totally futile a second later. glad sets are gone, hope we won’t see em again any time soon.
actually i correct myself. in a way, d4 has sets too. in the shape and disguise of aspects. that is, in a far larger number of combinations than lousy sets in d3. since after all, going to run after specific aspects for your own specific build, whatever you came up with, and then extracting and imprinting on this or that specific piece of your gear, turning it exactly in what you wanted, makes in the end that gear you get… a set. your own one, still a set. all those aspects, especially class specific ones are actually that, the base menu for a set. just now there’s an incredible number of ‘sets’ possibilities and varieties, and we decide what that set is, not the game with a premade terribly restricted selection in comparison to what we have here.
Sets didn’t ruin the game. Sets only account for 6/16 available slots (including cube and accounting for RRoG).
The problem came when scaling became out of control. The decision was made to move balance adjustments to sets and items rather than re-balancing all of the wep dps scalers on all of the skills (potentially multiple times). In the short term it was seen as a better use of dev resources.
The problem with that approach is it eliminated nearly all player agency. If a skill wasn’t boosted by sets and accompanying legendary items, it was useless. If their solution for damage mitigation was to introduce a new item then you had to use it. Since all item slots were locked you couldn’t simply move another item to an otherwise wasted slot like shoulders. It became an era of subclasses.
While I still have questions on item scalers in D4, particularly with the Druid, there is no question D4 is attempting to solve some of these issues. One of the questions remaining here is how difficulty interacts with itemization. A raise in difficulty generally corresponds with a reduction in choice. It’s easy to overlook in talks about D2 itemization that, after learning how to initially survive in Hell, it really wasn’t all that difficult of a game. Meanwhile, in D3, you went from faceroll to tickle mode in just a few GRs. Neither of those states are what I would consider balanced.
4 Likes
kinda… however time will tell, we need to wait till the official game is out. the biggest thing that D3 does is multipliers. However I don’t think D4 will be allowed to do this because of the fact PVP is part of the game (while it is optional) they can’t let get damage get out of control… even with that 93% DR debuff. If people start doin millions… billions… and trillions of damage it won’t even matter. PVP will be broken beyond repair with those sort of numbers.
I’m holding total judgement and waiting to see how things pan out first thou.
As much as I enjoyed D3 it isn’t hard to beat it’s itemization. 90% of the gear was the same stats for every class. Also, hoping sets don’t return honestly. I can’t see them balancing it alongside what we have.
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Liked the OP post not cause it’s just obvious, but more cause people overreact about D4 itemization, and finally someone to summarize that D4 DOES NOT need to be something else than it is
Just add a couple more types of affixes, and tweak the numbers for them to not stack up high, that’s all 
A set is nothing more than a bonus given to wearing multiple items. We are getting a huge volume of stats from items, skills, and paragon….adding one more isn’t going to inherently cause a balance problem (no more of a challenge than the game already has).
That said, I, personally, see no reason for sets. There are already so many interactions between items/skills/paragon to consider that I’m not sure sets really enhance the experience.
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I want sets in Diablo 4. Sets have always been a part of Diablo! I just want two ground rules. a) Sets are open-ended, AKA the set does not literally determine the build in advance, and b) there are no monstrous 10,000% multipliers.
I have already suggested Sorcerer sets doing things like "All damage you deal now counts are “Fire” damage. or a set equipping a “capstone” talent (leaving you to select another one), or adding a full set adds a third enchantment slot (as I play a sorcerer), but I’m not sure how that would be balanced. Foregoing three affixes for a third enchantment slot might be too weak, as you are only able to ever get your third best enchantment available.
Are you saying that every ARPG (D2, D3, D4, POE, Last Epoch etc) is all about stacking different pools of damage multipliers!? How iNsIgHtFuL!
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Idk D3 cube allowed to have 3 legendary effects as passives, now the current system allows you to to enchant any yellow item with any legendary affix and when a legendary drops i dont even care about stats cuz i just had to disenchant it and put it on the right stats items and in case of strong legendary to amulet or 2h weapon. Not really a rocket science, i am just not sure why legendaries are still a thing, instead of legendary item there should be a legendary scrolls that can be used directly to enchant gear. In that regard D3 > D4 even id D4 fan boys try to say otherwise.
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D4 lets you have up to 5 passive aspects in the paragon board so it is better than D3.
Like I said, it took me less than 1 week to fully understand D3 and realize D4 is SUPERIOR in almost every way.
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D2 itemization should have been the goal. But they copied d3 exactly. Whomp