I don’t post on the bnet forums but growing up a huge fan of the franchise since 2002, I just wanted to share my opinion.
First, the issue with “item power”. I agree that some GG items should have a level requirement. It makes sense, the more “powerful” an item is, the more level requirement is needed to equip that item and that’s fine. The issue is that all the items you find in D4 (even D3), WHILE PROGRESSING to max level is pretty much junk because the stats of those items is scaled by the “item power”. In other words, every item you find will be just as strong as your level.
Let’s not forget the true purpose of an arpg. It’s the feeling of progression, it’s the feeling of being rewarded by the countless hours/days/months of grinding, personal skill choices, but MOST IMPORTANTLY it’s the loot. Aside from skill choices, loot + itemization is the core aspect of the game.
With that said, the max level of D4 is 100. I do not know how long it will take to reach level 100 nor do I know the max level of an “item power”, but the fact that everything you’ve gathered before you reach max level is considered a low “item power” is a BAD system (especially the time spent getting those items). It makes everything you find during progression irrelevant and a complete waste of time. In D2, I can find a vmagi, string of ears, arreats face, skullders, and the list goes on and on, that are all low level items but can be viable/useful in hell. Just imagine finding an SOJ in norm or nm Andy but it’s completely useless because it wasn’t found in hell. Way to just completely short-circuit the entire leveling process of your game.
Now as for the legendaries, why are they still “raining from the sky”? The fact that I was geared with all legendaries + extra junk legendaries in my stash at lvl 25 is ridiculous. We were told they will be scaled down but it still gave the same D3 vibes. If you’re going to continue with the same drop rate, at least change the colors of the itemization. Make uniques “orange/gold” legendaries “yellow” and rares “blue”. If that’s too complicated then just please tone down the drop rate. That feeling of “oh sh*t” when a high rune, unid ring, amulet drops is completely non-existent in this system.
There is a rarity past legendary don’t worry about it. Your legendaries will be replaced at end game with better world tier legendaries. And then replaced by the higher tier item rarity.
The people complaining most vocally about issues on the forums barely do research into their complaints. Its been this way on all these forums since time immemorial.
that is correct. dont know why i bother… must have some sort of wiring problem upstairs. its like picking at a scab… you know you shouldnt, but you just have to look and see…
And where is your evidence of that? The beta is supposed to be an accurate depiction of the core foundation of the game, which is exactly what the developers said. The beta is used to polish the game, fix possible bugs, and of course user feedback.
It may just be the beta drop rate (HOPEFULLY) so that we could test items in 1 weekend. I am fully hoping and expecting Blizzard to tone down items for the full release. In the beta, after 1 hour I didnt care about blues at all.
Of course they did. But do you expect the open beta this weekend will feel any different? Do you really think much will change in 2 months on initial release? Highly doubtful. Don’t forget, I’m only talking about the drop rate and the “item power”.
Leggos in D4 are extraction trash, not items you’ll want to wear in the full release. Ignore the color, its only the color it is to let you know that the item has an extractable aspect on it.
I don’t get this hyper fixation on the legendary drop rate. Random leggos are not unique and they are almost never going to be any good outside the beta.
Blizz, I ask that you ignore this “I don’t want to be able to find aspects” feedback. I don’t want to have to spend weeks farming for aspects, thanks.
So many of these “raining from the sky” posts by people who can’t even grasp the basic game mechanics…NONE of those leg items you got were any good. There are multiple tiers of higher items that can’t even drop until higher difficulties.
Augments that can change your build and creates something new. That’s why it’s legendary, the ability it hold. Also know that legendary item is nothing more but a ability gem to slot into yellow gear due to it range of higher stats roll.
The scaling is what concern me the most. We’ll get a good item then after a level or two the mobs have scaled up and all of the sudden you’re weak again. That’s an awful feeling in a game like this. POE does it really well. It’s hard to tell how it’s going to be in d4 since we’ve only been able to get to 25. Maybe it’s good but I still worry about about the scaling which could constantly make us feel weak.
From what I found during the beta… the “Item Power” of an item was fairly useless as a mesaure anyway, epecially since it cost so much to reroll anything, and if there were two things that would need to be rerolled - doesn’t matter if it adds +30 iLev, it’s still worthless, because it lowers survivability/damage/utility anyway. Get an item that would give ~+50 iLev, but it has +2 levels Meteor and +1 level Spark while running a ice build? Trash.
Item power could shorten the loot hunt significantly and make for a bad experience.
Because item power scales with your level you will always need to find replicas of your current items as you level up because of item power is going up.
The problem here isnt item power in itself but the fact that affixes ALWAYS roll with values corresponding to the item power. Which means higher item power higher stats ALWAYS.
When you are level 100, you are going to be dropping perfect items (highest roll bracket) always, because there is no variance other than the highest bracket roll ranges, which are small anyway. When this is the case it will not take you long at all to find the gloves or boots with all the stats that you want, specially when you can reroll 1 of the stats.
Weapons seems to be a good example. Weapon DPS has no rolls its static according to the item power. At max level and presumably highest item power every single weapon has the same dps.
There is 2 solutions.
1 Make affixes on items spawn with more than just the highest affix bracket, make item power unlock higher affix brackets but not a guarantee to spawn on every item.
2 Item power needs to be RNG. As you level up you CAN drop higher item power items but its not a guarantee. SO when you are at the endgame and farming. The item power of the items dropping needs some variance.
For anyone who has played/playing PoE. It would be the equivalent of every single item dropping with T1 affixes. It would instantly kill the whole loot hunt and therefore the game.
Yeah you can say that when it comes to the D3/D4 loot system. In D2, rares we’re actually “rare” and uniques were actually unique and even more “rare”.