TLDR: follow green text
Crafting mythic items makes no sense
It is out of question that the drop rates for mythic items were unrealistic in S0 and S1. Something had to be done. Perhaps the D4 team added them to boss runs primarily to compensate, not knowing the trajectory it will cause.
Angsty to take away what was in many players hands before and of the sh*tstorm after, they decided to open the purple floodgates more and more with each patch to create a “fair environment” for everyone eyeing greater power.
Anyway, this is a growing problem. Now we reached a point where the player base has literal cheat items with auto-maxed stats on their checklist for the season.
Every other rarity below that
- impressive 300 legendary aspects (~50+40 per class)
- around 100 unique items (~15+20 per class)
- any new upcoming equipment type
is about to be replaced with the same handful of old purple stuff you know from last season. It happens quicker with each new option players get access to. The next one is right around the corner.
Runes remove the trading limit for mythic items
As far as I know, the mythic items are still not tradeable in VoH, but runes are (let me know if this is incorrect). Mythics can also be crafted with 3x10 runes and 1 spark. If implemented like that it circumvents the trading limit. This adds another major pay to win / pay for power element to Diablo 4 and make gold sellers scream in joy.
The thing is, (exciting) new items that are tradeable, no matter the rarity, become quickly available in large numbers because of bots. They change hands, lose their value in no time and become another checklist item.
I cant imagine the developers are happy about that or dont know that it is in their best interest to find a solution to this.
The ancient oppressor and why we need a loot filter tool
While we are at it, lets talk about the item power indicator/level.
The new ancient system coming with VoH puts ancient items on a higher itemlevel from 750 (non-ancestral) to 800 (ancestral). This also means higher affix ranges and it gives at least one greater affix.
I see this as a step backwards, caused by the ongoing struggle of the devs to avoid a designated loot filter tool. I was very happy when they made everything drop 925 at level 100. Now I am worried that the higher affix ranges in particular are adding another layer of garbage (besides white/blue/yellow/leveling items) in the form of “non-ancients”, because the power difference is quite remarkable in some cases: https://imgur.com/JX6LUKi
Mythic items are a good idea
Mythic drop rates were horrible in the early seasons but that is the only screw they needed to adjust.
If I had any say in this then mythic items would not even be target farmable so no player would feel disrespected with their time or entitled to the most powerful items in the game, let alone the ancient version of them. Players would no longer need a bad luck protection with crafting and they eventually would complain less about boring boss runs.
In the end those purple items would feel valuable each season, instead of being yesterdays content after 3 weeks.
The only thing that should create a spark is the hope back in your mind that if you log in today, it could happen any random moment.
And not thinking about how many boss runs or blacksmith visits you have to make to get a guaranteed purple item of your choice. Nothing mythical about that.
Thanks for reading
Diablo 4’s current Best in Slot handout system via crafting is obviously not a system that keeps a players motivation in the long run. Same methods every season, for every character. It creates boredom because the item journey becomes very predictable and it soon feels like “work” (heard that before?).
I see this as especially harmful in a genre that centers around luck and that benefits a lot from having many items to choose from.
But given that VoH adds 3(!) mythic items and only 5 (hopefully more) unique items, I suspect that the devs intend to stay on course and turn Diablo 4’s endgame into a fully equipped epic purple World of Warcraft experience.
This is a big mistake in my opinion. In any case it seems consistent between resetting gear progression with new addons, 10 additional player levels and a strong focus on item power indicators.