I don’t care about anything else. I don’t wanna hear about the next gimmick they are adding. I don’t wanna hear about story content. I don’t wanna hear about cosmetics. I don’t wanna hear about balance changes. All I want to hear out of their mouths is how they plan on addressing the complete failure of Itemization in D4. How are they going to make drops feel good and meaningful, and what are they going to do to make uniques actually be useful. Will they rework the entire foundation of aspects and distribute out the high end drops into later lvls or tiers? Cause right now there is zero point in playing past lvl 70 and doing high lvl NM dungeons, and it all stems from the awful Itemization. So don’t waste our time with 2 fireside chats and 4 hours of terrible puns and awkward jokes, unless you plan on first speaking to that issue.
I agree. This game is complete failure of item hunting. It’s basically a leveling game where you gain most power from paragon.
It really shows these devs have no clue and haven’t played any game like this before.
Think itemization is bad cause balancing is bad, not the other way round so therefore balancing is important… And to be precise and avoid confusion - when talking about balance I’m talking about balance between mechanics/affixes that the game offers
Right now Crit & Vuln. is king, and that just might be the biggest reason why itemization is bad, yes there are a couple other issues but this is by far the biggest one
Speaking of which - they’ve announced they’re addressing it for S2 so would like to see how that goes
For the record - the other 2 issues with itemization are #3 and #4 as #2 (perhaps should’ve been #1) is diversifying of endgame activities and incorporating glyphs & paragon into regular drops somehow.
In other words - as long as the only way to upgrade glyphs remains running NMDs over and over that problem of bad/exhausting/non-dynamic endgame will prevail further
#3 is an itemization issue yes and think it has some several bad affixes that need be either removed or improved (bonus after killing an elite, shrine buff duration, control impairment duration, and duplicates ofc., lightning/shock, pyromancy/fire, combine chilled and slowed into one, & similar)
#4 is something that some really approve and like but others not so much and that’s diversification of inherent rolls. The reason why I like the idea is cause fixes another subtle but still could say existing problem and that’s level-gating of builds and affixes (can’t get RCR before lvl40, can’t get Resource gen. before lvl70, can’t get a single meaningful LH or LH% chance for that matter before lvl70 & similar)
Therefore I think the best way to “combat” that is to diversify inherent rolls, it’s ok to keep the “stronger versions of affixes” for late game, but what is not ok to not even be able to acquire them earlier at all (therefore expanding/adding some of these in the pool of inherent rolls would fix that problem and b.t.w. the gamble addiction/cost problem also IMO)
TLDR - they’re seemingly addressing #1 out of those, so I’m all ears for S2 
Ah, sounds like you need to fast forward to that part of the video then
where does everyone keep getting this “past 70” from?
the game becomes the exact same repetitive loop once you finish the campaign. assuming you have already finished renown and alters.
after that its just running dungeons over and over. the game gets stale waaaaay before level 70
if you already have the alters/renown done… and you skip campaign… you basically start in the loop right off the bat.
The inadequate nature of the itemization peaks around there. Before this point a clearer progression to the drop quality exists. After this point the old stuff refusing to go away begins to impede drop acquisition.
We’re dealing with up to 4 independent affixes per piece of gear. With absurd affix bloat. With roll ranges on them. Plus aspects with a roll range. Close to a guaranteed visit to the slot machine to get four optimal affixes. Now keep sacreds in the mix with ancestrals and legendaries. It’s Layers upon layers of spinning the roulette wheel.
Uniques are an exception to much of this but most of those aren’t very good and they’re less common.
It’s clear what the design goal is here. It doesn’t sit well. It’s potentially detrimental to Blizzard’s bottom line in the future. From my perspective anyway. So it might merit consideration from their side.
There really is only 1 Rarity of Items and Legendary just signifies it has an Aspect on it. This is quite possibly the dumbest design choice they could have gone with. Separating items as “Normal”, “Sacred” and “Ancestral” is further pretty stupid.
- First of all, we like to see different kinds of items. Rarity of items should mean something. I like the idea of Rare items having the potential of being BiS, but Legendary items should at the least guarantee that 1 of the 4 Affixes rolls at the Maximum value and Item Power based on the content. Go ahead and add another Rarity level, Relic, that guarantees that 2 of the 4 Affixes roll at the Maximum value. Rarity levels should increase the probability any of the Affixes rolls with higher values, including when the item is Enchanted.
- Aspects need to be taken off gear and should drop by themselves. All Aspects should be able to be added to yout Codex and Upgraded similarly how Glyphs are upgraded by completing various types of content. This lets players feel more powerful as they play and gives you horizontal progression to look forward to.
- Aspects should be able to be Crafted and Salvaged. This would work like Malignant Hearts in that you could pick a category for the Aspect you want to craft, but the outcome is still RNG. While this does not completely remove RNG, it lets you at least limit it. This is particularly helpful when trying to get a Resource Aspect for your Ring.
- Aspects should apply to the item Slot and not the item itself. This allows you the ability to swap items and take upgrades a lot more often. You should be able to switch which Aspect applies to whichever slot freely, but replacing an Aspect would have a cost.
- Sacred gear should absolutely not drop in Tier 4. Normal items should not drop in Tier 3. Worthless Item Bloat.
- Unique Items should ALWAYS roll with the Maximum Affix Values for the item at the Item Power you find it, in particular, Uber Uniques.
- Item Sets. This has been discussed a lot. If it is handled how it has been traditionally, yeah it sucks because it severly limits your build options. Instead, these should work like the Card System in Lost Ark. Lets say you have (8) slots available. You can gather Artifacts of varying length. Some Sets might require (2) Artifacts while other up to (6). Each Artifact has a unique Bonus on its own, and when you have a Full Set, you gain a Unique Set Power. These Set effects might vary between Defensive, Offensive, or Utility in nature. – What this does is simply add a layer of Power that the Player can choose without losing Aspects, Affixes, and everyone running around with the same Set (or not because Blizzard intetionally makes it bad).
- Conditionals. Really guys? Let’s simplify things a bit and give players more flexibility in how they play. You pretty much tell me how to play when my damage scales with Berserking, Vulnerable Enemies, Crits, Stunned Enemies, Bleeding Enemies, at Full Fury and standing in a Quake. It makes any hit that does NOT take advantage of those things as worthless. The Feast or Famine game design is very shallow and needs to be refined. I would like more choice in how I weave and use my skills vs spam them at set intervals.
Its an item hunt game that the devs have said they dont want us hunting the best items in … absolutely bonkers.
Fix Gear Period…It needs more than just an itemization rework. We need interesting additions and an Aspect system overhaul too…
Finally hit 75. Was the last objective I needed in chapter 6 of the journey. Get my cache which is a level 70 container. Open it and get 3 jewelry pieces, all sacred capped at level 60. Why is this even considered a reward?
if you spent more time in game rather than in forums you would have your bis gear and wouldnt be complaining about itemization. my druid has been set for over a month
Community manager casual reporting for duty ^
I agree with you wholeheartedly. I uninstalled bnet and this game over this issue being as bad as it is.
That being said, you’re a fool to think they will ever even address this let alone solve it.
So then you can never farm anything for an alt.
I think this is the wrong way to go. Capturing the powers of a legendary item is cool. I think they should make it so that the Legendary item itself is cooler, not just remove it from the game. If the extract wasn’t perfect or the legendary had a bonus affix that synergized with the aspect (but didn’t get extracted), it would make legendary drops meaningful.
Diablo 3 has pets that can salvage gear for you on the fly… why doesn’t Diablo 4 have this? This is inexcusable considering how much you can have vendor stuff just to be able to keep pace with the ridiculous gold sink in the game.
I don’t think it needs to go to such extremes. The logical starting point is addressing the affix bloat. There is no reason for so many extremely specific affixes. A number of these should be straight up removed. Others merged together. Condense the affix pool.
Drops should scale with mob level. Kill a more powerful foe, get better loot. There was no need to reinvent the wheel here. For much of the game it behaves this way. Toward the later parts it’s like they just gave up.
Aspects would probably be fine if improved versions went into the Codex and replaced any weaker versions already present. A way to craft them isn’t a bad idea either. Attaching them to the slot shouldn’t be necessary.
Item sets down the road isn’t a bad idea.
I don’t think they need radical changes to the rest. If the loot hunt pace is too fast following such changes then adjust drop rates.
You could just lower the world tier for a bit and farm away.
With smart loot, you’re probably not getting much for an alt unless you’re playing multiple of the same class.
And if that was what I was doing, I’d much rather drop a world tier than receive drops for a potential alt that I have far out leveled.
Items matter 100% in late game because pushing high content is more about defense than damage with no time limits on dungeon clears. More damage reduction comes from items than Paragon. Okay, lots of stats come from paragon. But if you aren’t optimizing your gear even at levels 90-100 you aren’t clearing the highest content.
To those of you who got perfect +725 yellows at level 78, good for you. Thank your RNG and go clear NM 100 and kill Uber Lilith. If you don’t want to, play something else and see you on Oct 17th.
Or not.
Yup, this is the absolute only thing that matters right now. Even if they do fix itemization, there are several other mountains to conquer after that. But this is the absolute pinnacle problem in the game. If it is not solved, then nothing else they do matters.
Level req has nothing to do with the item’s power.
This won’t have the effect you want. All it will do is make it so that there are no item upgrades to be found even earlier in the progression, and it will force everyone into farming the same exact items regardless of build. They need to make more affixes strong.
Also, people get fixated on these “specific” affixes because they see them on weapons, but it really only affects weapons and to a lesser extent rings.
They didn’t give up, they specifically designed it to cap out. They just missed the mark on drop rates so we get there too fast.
Or they could just add a loot filter and let people who want to find items for alts use a filter that shows them. The drop rate is already too high, so it’s not like they can replace those sacred and normal rare drops with ancestral rare drops. You’re just asking to see fewer items.