Problem is, some people think they are getting a dopamine effect from D3, and they likely are. Items sure arent rare in that game. Nor can you trade.
It does have high power on those items, but only for a few days, then you have found everything.
So, it would appear that you dont need “Rarity, value, usefulness” for triggering that dopamine effect.
For me personally, D3 does nothing of that kind. Both D2 and D4 are much better at it.
But trading value sure isnt a factor there. Rarity and usefulness are. For others it might seemingly be different.
Cant agree there. The difference between 4 good affixes for your build and 4 bad ones are insanely huge. Arguably so than in D2.
Less so than in D3, but again, the absurd multipliers in D3 didnt feel manage to trigger any dopamine imo. Only boredom.
Cant recognize this either. Lvl 75 in the season and especially my amulet is still terrible, but basically all the items could be better, and still finding upgrades daily.
D4 itemization is bad though, and imo item droprate should be reduced substantially, while quality should be improved, by cutting off the lower quality drops (low item power and low affix rolls). That imo would improve the dopamine effect, when you dont get items that are bad only because they rolled low. Getting an item with the “wrong” stats, but high rolled, can still feel good, as that item might be useful in some other build.
The affix pool should both be reduced, and expanded; combine some of the current affixes that do the same things for different builds/classes - all affixes should basically work across all classes, but very much not across all builds. We don’t really need two different affixes for Stunned and Frozen, for example. Just make it an affix for ‘hard cc’. Slowed and Chilled could get a combined one for soft CC. Etc. Whereas stuff like Close and Range should remain, as they do different things.
Then begin to add a ton of new interesting affixes instead.
Just no trading, ever, imo. That one is a dopamine killer. Felt that in PoE. Finding good items become meaningless, when you could have gotten them much faster and easier through trading in a crashed, oversaturated market.