Gems are boring but they could be interesting if Diablo 4 brought back D2 jewels but with a twist

PC General Discussion
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Diablo 4 are boring and ultra limited and niche, i often was asking myself which gem is the less bad to socket my items with, something that you dont want your players to think when they are faced with such choice

Diablo 2 jewels were a nice source of a wide variety of interesting affixes and came with from RNG which can be thrilling

Thats what Diablo 4 should aim and why it should bring back jewels as socketing material

but the twist would be that unlike diablo 2, Jewel dont drop

Jewels are instead crafted

using the gems you find and the material you salvage, you can craft jewels with specific affix combo in mind… but its still RNG

Lets say jewels can have 3 affixes

When crafting a jewel you sacrifice 3 gems

Those 3 affixes nature is dictated by the nature of the gems you sacrifice and also their quality

a certain pool of affixes is attributed to skulls, another to rubies, etc

being 3 gems allows you to create versatile jewels that picks in multiple pools

-example1:you craft a jewel with 3x chipped Ruby then your jewel creation picks 3 affixes in the Ruby associated pool, having the change to pick the same affix multiple times as well.

result: it picks life% 3 times which results in a 5% life jewel which would be lower than a 5.5% life chipped ruby, but which have the perk of applying in other slots than armor

but you can also fish in multiple pools sacrificing odds of more potent affixes

-example2:you could also have skull, ruby, emerald and itll pick 1 of each of those pools.

result: +5.0% overpower damage,10 thorns, 4life after kill

this allows gems to remain the best value for their provided affix and also create a variation of lesser magnitude but wider sectrum

note: i used exclusively existing affixes from gems but it could be a wider pool, used those since we know them and their value

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The less things they bring back from that crappy fossil, the better. It’s bad enough they’ve already copy/pasted all the classes and skills.

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Like if the opinion of a D3 fans matters lol

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Well, more than yours shrug

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I am all for Charms/Jewels/Runes making a comeback, loved that feeling when finding a good one! :beers:

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seems like a good way to implement them.

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The way gems are right now feels a little bland to me as well, but might be on purpose. For one we don’t have the obvious gem / class meta D3 had, which is a step forward in my book to make gameplay and different builds more versatile and less steamlined in accordance with some obvious class-based choice.

In D3 gems were somewhat progression based and generalistic. Rubies in helmets until you hit 70, max class main stat for dps, using diamonds as necessary for tankiness, and ofc. emeralds for weapons.
In D4 we currently don’t have a lot of info yet and know basically nothing about endgame builds, but still the gems suggest different, more situational focus on the builds and used abilities/mechanics instead of focusing on the general main stat of a class.

That gems were not as impactful or interesting as of yet might just be due to the low level caps and restrictions we were faced with and will probably make more sense deeper into the game. And who knows, maybe the minimalistic approach is to keep some visual space open for eventual runes or something else entirely?

Jewels as a sort of multi-affix custom gem sounds interesting as a concept and your approach would probably add up, but I’m not sure I would want to RNG gem crafting. Adding multiple effects on already multiple pre-existing effects of an item would also quickly result in a visually unwieldy mess.

Just my two cents

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Probably this will be the rune role.
And by the way they did MASSIVE nerfs to gems to the point they are in the majority USELESS NOW.

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It’s not even the values that makes me see them boring, it’s mostly the nature of their affixes

To be frank, I have a similar sentiment toward gear affix in general

The lack of “enhanced damage” and its variants feels off in a Diablo game

  • Ed
  • Ed vs demon
  • Ed vs undead
  • flat damage (phys, cold,fire,etc)
  • life leech
  • etc
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I think they are fine for a game release. A brand new live service game can’t ship with every single feature anyone could ever want, they need room to grow.

The currect batch of gems seemed to have decent options for every character I made. Though you are right that they weren’t always exciting.

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and this kind of sentiment is the reason AAA companies release half baked games

why cant they just release the best game they can and then improve upon it? rather than releasing the minimum, withholding content so that they can release it later, mostly through dlc

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But its not half baked. Its perfectly fine for a game release. People keep comparing new games to others that have had years of expansions and growth.

Trying to do and have everything at launch leads to development hell that either releases as an absolute mess or delays and delays for years.

If you release all the content at once, most of it gets skipped and ignored in favor of only doing the most efficient thing. Staggering content releases is good for everyone.

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Another apologist take

They also have experience and content from those previous game

The improvements done through years of D2 were available to d3 devs team and the years of content from D3 was available for D4 devs… on top of the content from all other games

A major game company releasing a barebone game in 2023with all that’s at their hand is just lazyness and greed

It’s a new game, not a new franchise nor a new genre

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And again, its not barebones. It did borrow on content designed from D3, and absolutely shames what Diablo 2 had. Unless you actually think runewords were some pinnacle of content that the game can’t be good without (hint; d2 was good before runewords existed)

If you want to sulk around and kick stones over gem slots, feel free. We’ll be over here enjoying a fun game for what it is.

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Shows your lack of diablo history knowledge

D2 was good before runeword
D2 was great when runeword got added
D2 was ruined after 1.10 changes

People claiming runewords ruined d2 conflate “runewords” and “1.10 runewords”

Runewords were perfect between 1.07 and 1.10

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Except I never said runewords were bad or ruined it. I only said it was good without them. As in, they were not a requirement for it to be a good game that was a huge success (for a pc game in its time)

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No runewords were an important part of the diablo itemization as they introduced semi-deterministic items

Some kind of unique items you can work toward and see your progression

It’s a great concept that I wish to be implemented in diablo 4

So are sets which give you the option to sacrifice build flexibility for raw power, a concept introduced in D2, failed by d3 but that has awesome potential in D4 due to legendary aspects giving a proper “sacrifice” choice

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Sure that’s fine. I hope that eventually they make it into D4 as well. But my point was, D2 was still good before it had them, and D4 will be good without them. There’s plenty of itemization going on with the current game (IMO), and down the road after people have had their fill of it, something new can be introduced to chase.

I just don’t feel that D4 is “half-baked” or “barebones” as a release because the gem system is a little dull.

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not at the expense of my inventory or something to add complexity for complexities sake.

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It’s funny you say the gems are boring but list these affixes like they are good.

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