Game is decent. Gameplay is fun. Itemization is, again, a concern. Repeating the mistakes from D3 where we started with the 100-200-300% dmg increases directly from items and ended up - after a decade - with 10.000% or 15.000% increases in order to keep up with new content tiers is just problematic.
Examples (D4 Beta):
“Your Wolf Companions are now Werewolf Companions. Werewolf companions deal 200% additional damage and can spread Rabies.”
Skills direct raw power should be ~70% from the skill tree, ~25% from paragon board (min-max) and ~5% from items (ultra min-max).
Items should focus on modifying what the skill does/behave - the creativity lies here - , but not interfere with the skill relative damage (outside attributes). Specially when it becomes the diff between “useless skill” vs “OP skill”.
I want my Windforce unique bow to have a better Knockback chance versus all other Bows in the game - even, maybe, a special unique property to trigger a (small) chance to KB elites/bosses etc -, but it does not need to also have a 500% damage multiplier to a core skill meaning that, if I don’t use Windforce for that particular skill, the skill itself will be just terrible to use in general.
Although very unlikely, I really hope they fix this aspect of itemization for launch.
47 Likes
Yea its D3 all over again with all the power coming from items.
7 Likes
D3 started with 0.2% dmg increases on yellow and never dropping legendaries. With story bosses with crazy healthbars. This laid a terrible foundation to balance the game and everything from that point is a consequence of this foundation. Enrage timer on butcher to check for single target dps builds. So stupid. Imagine balancing that, nightmare.
This game is already balanced around these numbers from the very start. It will be a whole different ride.
200% agree.
Blizzard makes this same mistake with world of Warcraft, and that’s why every two or three expansions they need to do an item level squish. They have no idea how to scale gear drops over time.
Please keep scaling under control for this game.
3 Likes
That’s making a support skill into a DPS skill. 200% more on a meager amount isn’t game breaking.
Besides, Ball Lightning has a passive that gains 200% benefit from increased attack speed, iirc.
I remember D2 with items affecting skills in a more strategical way like “chance to cast” suffixes. That would be more balanced. If these items get so important for a char build, it will result in the gigantic item inflation that happens in D3 with infinite +% and HP in monsters/elite. Then it becomes a competition of who has the highest number.
2 Likes
Os desenvolvedores deveriam ver isso aqui.
1 Like
That it is absolutely necessary. I highlight the following points:
Skills direct raw power should be ~70% from the skill tree, ~25% from paragon board (min-max) and ~5% from items (ultra min-max)".
Items should focus on modifying what the skill does/behave - the creativity lies here - , but not interfere with the skill relative damage (outside attributes). Specially when it becomes the diff between “useless skill” vs “OP skill”.
5 Likes
Really don’t get why they have it boosted so high. I feel like it might be a bug because in the datamined info the values were half that at 100-150%, but either way I’d agree they should have just raised the base damage and not have insane multipliers making certain aspects stupid not to take.
1 Like
Cause they couldn’t think of other ways of making you have a dopamine hit when getting a legendary. For most players, seeing a random skill doing something different isn’t super exciting. Boosting your damage by 50% is. Its shallow, short term design. I won’t say that it ruins the game, but definitely could have been handled better. There are many legendaries that offer someting unique without providing higher numbers directly.
the “broken” mist form legendary is a prime example.
1 Like
As far as I can tell the only two legendaries with huge boosts on them are those two druid companion legendaries out of all the legendaries datamined.
Theres not many legendarys like that. Relax. Just for useless skills like druid pets.
Lucky Hit: Hits with this weapon have up to a x chance to deal double damage and Knock Back the target.
Windforce for you.
Which, for one is a unique, and for two is a 10-20% chance meaning it’s a 20-40% boost
I played necromancer during beta. my main sources of legendary aspects for minions were “add an extra minion” and “if your minion is alive it hits faster” 
There is one cool aspect that makes skele mages cast blizzard at least, according to datamines.
You deal [[30 – 40]|%x|] increased Shadow Damage to enemies afflicted by both Decrepify and Iron Maiden.
Shallow boost with strange requirement
Blood Surge’s nova echoes again after a short delay, dealing [[60 – 70]|%x|] less damage.
Shallow boost (doesn’t add stacks to the overpower counter btw)
Your Sacrifice bonuses are increased by [[15 – 25]|%|].
Shallow boost for minionless
Blood Lance deals x[[15 – 25]|%|] increased damage to its primary target per lanced enemy.
Shallow boost
Bone Spirit deals increased damage based on distance traveled, up to [[15 – 25]|%x|].
Shallow boost
Blood Wave fires two additional waves, each dealing [[50 – 60]|%x|] less damage than the previous.
Shallow boost
They just affect raw skill damage and don’t really seem to change anything about your character. Blood nova almost did something extra, if the secondary hit mattered for anything, which it does not. So its just an extra tick of damage.
And the annoying thing is, if you intend do use any of these skills as primary damage, you have to add these. No one would refuse these bonuses, there is no decision being made either.
2 Likes
I am merely talking about the 100-150% boost stuff, I don’t see what all those have to do with that.
No matter what they do people won’t be happy. Low numbers and people complain they are useless. High numbers and people say they force them to build around them. Having them all modify skills makes the people yell that they should have been in the skill tree. Having all effects be in the skill tree makes the legendaries feel boring. No matter what route they go people are going to be upset.
1 Like
Are you going to fixate on my hyperbole example or put effort into understanding what is trying to be conveyed here? there, ill edit for a more realistic value then. Lets see if it changes the issue
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You have a limited amount of choices for each type of aspect and you can’t take them all. Like the skills, the choice is picking the best combinations.
You’re never going to satisfy everyone I agree, but I do feel like they could have been a bit more creative with legendary effects instead of giving huge multiplicative damage bonuses. Druid feels bad in the early game because the things that make him decent and fun to play are all on legendaries. Pulverize becomes good when it gets the legendary aspect of producing a shockwave that does 250% (!) of its damage (2-hander). The basic Tornado skill feels bad to use and is hard to aim, but once you get the aspect that makes the Tornado home in on targets it suddenly becomes a viable and fun skill to use.
Point is the base skill system should be such that skills are viable and fun to use, and that you don’t need any aspects to be able to have a good time or do decent damage. Also just stacking damage multipliers through legendaries to do millions of damage is a terrible and uncreative system which is not unlike the way D3 works right now with set items giving 10000% dmg bonuses. There are other ways to make legendaries in D4 impactful and interesting.
4 Likes
I agree that the pulverize boost is also a bit much with it’s 90-130% damage that can be doubled, but like with the companions the base damage should just be improved. As for the tornado, it would just be much better than the other skills in the tier if it homed in on targets by default wouldn’t it?
Worth mentioning that the way D4 works with damage multipliers is the same as D3, you want to stack as many “+X% damage” as you can. So it really becomes a matter of stacking all of these bonuses to the moon with little to no thought behind it. And since aspects can be imprinted on multiple slots (weapon one goes on necklce, glove, etc) You don’t have to decide what to pick either. Just go with all of them
1 Like