Preface
I have generally enjoyed playing Diablo 4 over the last month despite what I feel are its shortcomings. It’s a decent game and good foundation for the future. This suggestion comes from a place of wanting to improve upon what’s already here and not tearing things down. If you like my ideas, fantastic. If you don’t, I’d love to hear why and how it might be improved or changed. There’s no TLDR since there’s not an easy way to condense it.
Goal
One of the things I feel needs the most attention for the longevity of the game is itemization. The current system introduces some interesting concepts, but they don’t quite collectively offer the right balance between the dopamine rush of random chance and the feeling that as a player you have at least some control over your character’s growth. The systemic changes outlined below attempt to adjust these opposing forces in an effort to provide a better balance.
Item Tiers
I don’t mind the current concept of item tiers, though as you progress through the world tiers, the lower item tiers should be much less frequently encountered. Being in WT4 should all but eliminate items below sacred level from dropping. Too many of the items are automatic vendor trash since they will never be upgrades and simply reduce the opportunity for finding decent gear.
Aspects and The Codex
I really like the core concept of Aspects and how they differ from unique item abilities. It expands the over simplified legendaries system in D3 into a much broader range of possibilities since the powers are not locked to a specific item slot and can now be placed on a number of different slots based on their category. However, the current extract/imprint and Codex systems are very limiting in their implementations.
Builds that rely on drop-only aspects are put at a significant disadvantage while leveling versus those that can imprint from the codex. They end up using outdated gear if the required aspect doesn’t drop often enough to keep up with gear replacement. Even when an aspect is available in the codex, you are forever stuck with the minimum roll for that aspect. This makes the Codex useless at higher content tiers since the minimum rolls simply aren’t good enough to comfortably defeat them.
The first change is to make all aspects available through the Codex. You can’t use the drop-only aspects until you obtain that aspect on an item, while the current codex aspects are still unlocked through completing dungeons. All aspects in the codex start at the minimum rolls as they do today.
The current extract/imprint system would be replaced to put more of an emphasis on the Codex system and provide the player with more control over their characters’ power growth. When an aspect is extracted from a legendary item, you no longer receive a snapshot of the aspect to use for imprinting. Instead, you obtain a legendary fragment that remembers the aspect that was extracted including the aspect category (offensive, defensive, etc). You can only imprint from the Codex.
The legendary fragment can be used to “level up” any aspect within the codex. When the fragment is applied to the aspect it was extracted from, you would receive full benefit. If you apply that fragment to another aspect in the same category as the original you receive half benefit. If applied to an aspect of a different category, only a quarter of the benefit would be gained.
A legendary fragment would also be tradeable at any level. Since it doesn’t directly confer power to other players, there isn’t any risk of significant RMT related to them. They’d simply be a form of tradeable currency.
Each season, you would start with an empty codex. However, the leveling of aspects in the seasonal codex would then be added to your eternal realm codex. This provides some continuity between the realms and allows time spent in season to also benefit your eternal characters.
The new system ensures the codex remains relevant throughout a character’s life time including end game and becomes a goal in and of itself. Players can continue to level aspects within the codex as an end game activity. This also makes having alts a little easier.
Affixes & Item Slots
The number of affixes on gear should be streamlined. There doesn’t need to be a vs XXXX affix for every type of crowd control. A simple vs crowd controlled would suffice. The same can be done with:
- vs damage over time (bleeding, poisoned, burning)
- while shapeshifted (instead of separate werewolf and werebear)
- crit damage with/while XXXX should just be crit damage
The class specific affixes for ranks of XXXX skill should have corresponding substitutes for each class. When a druid looks at the affix it might be +3 ranks of shred while a sorc would see +3 ranks of ice shards. This would remove the limitation of these items to be class specific.
Certain affixes need to be available on more item slots. The amount of CDR and RCR is very limited from a gear standpoint. The maximum amounts of those stats varies between classes based on which slots they have. A player should be able to concentrate on one set of stats if that is their wish. The current system is again very limiting of player choice and control.
Overall, reducing the total number of affixes would help streamline the process of gear comparison and enchanting. Although the player is still at the mercy of RNG, it would be less punishing and increase the likelihood of finding something valuable.