Improve itemization with less RNG

PC General Discussion
1

The main issue with itemization in Dungeon Crawler is ever the drop and improvement systems.

The drop system has always been the same with some tweaks. Kill and Loot. But, what you loot? Gear and currencies. The second one is ever made for the improvement system and/or a way to overpass the drop chance. Even so, Dungeon Crawlers never or give very few systems to craft your own gear.

MMORPG always offers to ways to gearing your character. Grinding the gear on dungeon, raids or any challenge against a mighty mob. The second, is to farm materials from killing specific monster and extracting resources. Dungeon Crawlers, normally, doesn’t focus to extract resources, because, they focus more in action.

In D3 we can craft some items, but, powerful ones comes from loot drops. In D4, you can craft uber items with runes, but the problem is the GA.

So, GA are more problematic because add a full layer of RNG. The idea of Itemization, is ever we have a way to control the loot we want, but, player doesn’t have any control over GA. I said before we could control it with extracting the GA and implement in the item with the stats we need, but the GA need to be the same stat to be implemented.

Another issue with GA, items can have multiples GA, so, the solution I said before doesn’t fix the out of control, is just a patch.

Taking that in consideration, we have two choices here, remove GA system and nerf the max difficult of the game or GA should not be random and be applied on Masterworking system in the 25% rng.

2

Greater Affixes are not meant to be just another step in the character progression. They are deliberately implemented to be extremely unlikely to have. It is for players who want to do min-maxing up to masochistic levels.

3 Likes
3

[currency]
item
rarity: mythic
acquisition method: drop
effect description: upgrade a selected affix

example:
affix 1 [50-100]
affix 1 greater affix [150-300]

apply [currency] to [item 1]

select affix to upgrade

  • Dexterity [100/100]
  • Maximum Life [200/200]
  • Critical Strike Damage [100/100]

[Critical Strike Damage] is selected

  • Critical Strike Damage [179/300]
4

Please, no!
That is the game killer option, so no!

1 Like
5

That isn’t how the game is really developed. Progression is not fluid at all and Greater Affixes provide a massive disparity in Power Level. Unfortunately, Masterworked Greater Affixes are necessary for many builds and Skills to function fluidly and seamlessly. This has most to do with Cooldown Reduction, Resource Cost Reduction etc.

You are probably more likely to find a 3GA item with the Affixes you want than an item with 3 Max Affixes or near Max Affixes. There is a pretty big range of Affixes that are 100% RNG while GAs are fixed at Max Value x1.5.

6

What I would like to see is them add a 4th affix to higher tier of gear. Bring back dmg reduction, cdr affixes on more gear slots. Add in more affixes that arent junk. Stuff like increased elemental resist. Passive ranks on more pieces than neck. Maybe they could add something crazy like “this piece of gear aspect 2x” as if it were a 2hander or 1.5x as if it were a neck slot. Maybe something like your barrier cant be hit for more than x% per hit.

I dunno. Im not in a creative mood right now. I thought of a bunch of cool affixes they could add last season but I forgot them. In any case what I am trying to say is add a 4th affix and give us a bunch of cool ones that can only be on that affix slot. Im not asking for a bunch of dmg on Tuesdays or xtra shrine duration garbage. Just good affixes that give gear some more variety so that gear is more fun.

2 Likes
7

They have already done this with Tempering. Additionally Affixes should absolutely NOT be added as more RNG but more deterministic. Think classical “Enchantments” or “Enhancements/Augments” that can be added to Items. This is the type of crafting that needs to be added. Grim Dawn does a great job of this as it allows you to round out your builds.

8

I want more than tempering. The drops themselves are boring because there are only 3 affixes and its mostly mainstat, health, +armor or something. Its boring af.

3 Likes
9

RNG is not a “main issue” in A-RPG itemization. It is a main strength.
Crafting, trading, deterministic guaranteed item progression goes against that strength.

However

This I agree with. GA is mostly incredibly boring. Repeating the same items with higher numbers. Meaningless itemization.

Also get rid of Tempering. Those affixes should simply be applied when an item drops.

Yeah, D4 itemization is basically non-existent at this point.

3 Likes
10

I finally got around to playing a SB. Been playing Rogue all season. Got “the gear”.Masterworked it to 12, even triple crited on some. Paragon’s at 300 and glyphs are maxed. Read some build guides and watched some videos so I knew everything was right. “Cool”, I thought. Going run me some sweet 150s now. Not so much. There is “gear” and then there’s “GEAR” and let’s not ever confuse the two.

1 Like
11

Like you say, I don’t think RNG is the enemy here, as I said, Dungeon Crawler are based on kill and loot.

But, Implement RNG in the RNG is not a good option for players.

I think Tempering is better than GA and tempering should have the option to apply a GA with a special item or currency. So, we still have to farm and the RNG is still the main way to grind power.

12

GA drops much more next patch (from my PTR experience). I think getting GA will become a non-issue.

However - you’ll still get players that will complain they can’t get perfect 4GA loot drops every 30 minutes of play. :roll_eyes:

13

Relying entirely on RNG is bad design. The Base Item Affixes are RNG. The Affix values are RNG. Tempers are RNG. Temper values are RNG (to the point of bricking items). Masterworking Affix Crits are RNG and must be done consecutively 3 times in a row. Finding Runes is entirely RNG. Reward Caches are almost all RNG.

You have multiple layers of RNG and this is NOT a strength. Progression can go from literally a worthless item to BiS. There really isn’t a lot of in-between and the systems are all based around End-Game BiS item acquisition.

Itemization does not feel good in D4. It is okay to have RNG, but a well-designed game would have congruent deterministic systems also. Both methods should compliment one another. The closest we have to this are Loot Tables for specific Unique Items from Uber Bosses.

14

Yeah, so remove Tempering, remove masterworking, and most important, lower the affix ranges.
Then add two more affixes to all items, as replacement for tempering (same affixes available).
Replace the bad and/or boring RNG with interesting RNG.
Just dont replace it with deterministic item gains.

Get rid of most skill and class specific affixes, that would remove a massive amount of RNG and make all items more likely to be useful.
But then also get rid of smart loot (wouldnt have any purpose after the above is removed). Finally being able to find items you might want to use on another class, in a freaking A-RPG.

Get rid of the concept of each class having a “main attribute”. All 4 attributes should offer something valuable for each class.

And for balancing, make sure that Rares, Legendaries, Uniques and Mythics all have the same power at the high end (with Rares and Legendaries of course having much lower power at the low end, due to having more RNG).

15

Well, my personal concern is the rare items should not be useless, and the codex is another RNG layer that not must exist.

Majority of aspect should come from tree of talent. Maybe, Legendaries have the GA and just great stats.

I like uniques and mythics, they fell the way it call, unique is a way to build and mythics great powers. But, if you put the GA in the formula, it comes stressful.

Tempering I thing is a good idea, but, like you said, boring RNG, just stats, they could offer only the CC and turn your damage in other element, or anything that feels like it changing the fight in a special way, like, a massive stun after 100 crit hits or vulnerability freezes, I dunno, I think there is a lot they could offer with Tempering and not just stats

1 Like
16

This unpredictability is what makes the game fun for me. I doubt I would play much longer if the RNG is turned down even further.

Diablo is a game of gambling, that has to be clear to players who are aiming for the absolute endgame. And I think the developers have done a pretty good job of accommodating players with mechanics to work around the RNG. A downside of this is that content can feel dull after a while.

My tip: It helps a lot to get rid of the “mandatory” mentality when playing ARPGs, because checklisting everything can quickly feel like work. As the game grows, it will become harder and harder to “complete” and feel even more like a chore.

/s?

2 Likes
17

No definitely not
Tempering is bad, not because it can “brick” items, that is quite fine, but in an A-RPG items should come from killing monsters, opening chests etc, not from clicking on a Blacksmith NPC while standing in town.

It is a bad joke that items have 3 affixes on them in D4.

2 Likes
18

I like Tempering. Tempering is what allows me to go leaps and bounds in performance. It actually helps alleviate RNG because you’re able to pick a small group of affixes that has the one you want.

Without the Tempering system, we’d be back to farming for 4/4’s and it would be a nightmare trying to farm just the right piece not even incl the fact that the affixes need to be at the right value.

1 Like
19

The problem with that is in tempering/masterworking there is only usually one affix that you want and every single other one is a waste of both your time and effort. Since the process is purportedly to improve gear then there should only be two possible outcomes “good” and “less good”, not “good” and “terribel”.

1 Like
20

I get what you’re saying. I think the idea though is that one of your enchants gets you the stat you want, and then Tempering gets you the other. It’s still RNG but it reduces RNG by a massive amount seeing as those two stats didn’t need to roll. The second stat I think is intended to give you some sort of variety or utility which I happen to like.

Below example is the ring I’m wearing which is 1 enchant 1 temper 5/5 all desirable affixes
https://i.imgur.com/SXGVvHD.png