[Joint effort] Let's fix itemization

PC General Discussion
1

Title :slight_smile:

Ok, so yesterday I created an albatross of a topic which people rightfully so ignored (https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d4/t/a-deeper-analysis-and-some-guidelines-based-on-comparisons-for-itemization/226153) cause it was largely biased but also it was mainly to support my “hot takes” that I’ll start the topic with just here below

  • Hot take #1 => Rarity is not relevant, can carry that extra “cherry” on the top but good itemization does not come from “item hunt” i.e. rarity chase, how the “rest” i.e. vast majority of items function is much more important
  • Hot take #2 => Fine tuning (be it in the form of a lot of affixes or in the form of high amount of getting exactly what you want) is not only not needed but also arguably detrimental
  • Hot take #3 => Itemization’s most important (BY FAR) characteristic is immediate gauge of individual affix impact (each independently of their own)
  • Hot take #4 => A lot of other games praised for good itemization just have a mediocre itemization but a very good crafting mechanism (*)

I put that last one with an asterisk (*) because I want to emphasize that that one currently is probably the worst part of D4’s itemization (i.e. if a bad feature existed in it that is the one)

And the main reason why is the following:

  • The moment where you realize that you got a GREAT item drop but you have to go do “circles” to unlock its true potential from MW is like remembering you didn’t pay rent or bills the moment you got a bonus :smiley:

The problem is not that MW works or doesn’t work, the problem is that the way it is designed is MANDATORY for every single drop (regardless of the type of drop)

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As you can see from my initial “hot takes” I’m probably leaning towards the statement that “D2 is king of itemization” despite other games have done some improvements to make things work (kudos for creativity, sure)

BUT, here are few things that I claim to be the “secret sauce” of what made itemization in D2 work better than every other (yes even 25 years later too)

  • “Zero BS policy”, i.e. every option that gets offered is offered in as least possible forms

For example

  • Half freeze duration, Cannot be frozen

Not

  • 17% reduced freeze duration, or 17% impairment duration reduced, or gain 25% CC reduction after Crit/Overopwer e.t.c.

It’s JUST the two options (no more)

Same with Poison durations (25%/50%/75%) that’s it, there’s no 22% or 37%. ALL you get is a 3-state switch that you’re offered

The second “secret sauce” of itemization in D2 were “carry” affixes, i.e. affixes that regardless of the potential “affix soup” below carry the weight of an item (+2 to Offensive Auras, +1 to All skills, e.t.c.)

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Now, over some time and over some iterations (half-jokingly or in more serious matter), I’ve created a list of some affixes in that particular style (although they might not end up being THAT impactful), i.e. affixes that are just outright (or very close) to having “zero BS policy” in them

  • DoT per tick increased by Life per kill
  • Thorns increased by basic attack damage amount
  • Overpower damage [x ] increased by CC% duration bonus
  • Evade grants Overpower
  • CDR increased by DR%
  • Cannot be Dazed
  • Cannot be Vulnerable
  • 25%/50% less elite affix damage taken
  • DoT can be stacked twice
  • Overpower occurs twice in succession
  • Lucky hits occur twice in succession
  • Lucky hit chance vs Elites & Bosses is doubled
  • Basic attacks ignore defenses and barriers
  • 25%/33% of damage dealt ignores defenses and barriers

Hint: you can add some of your own :slight_smile:

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Now what to potentially do with some of those ?, even if most of them sound like a “place it on unique” type of material, don’t do that, try make a sub-set of Rare items that cannot be MW-ed, and try place some of these on them (be it gloves, amy, helm, whatever)

===

Which brings us to the following point:

  • Itemization is not a system, it’s a collection of systems that each have a separate criteria of determining item value of their own

That’s where D2 excelled the most, white items could’ve been superior or high-capacity-socketable, blue items could roll highest, rare items could roll extra affixes compared to other types…

Now, I’m NOT saying that this is what D4 must/should do, what I’m saying is:

Try to uncouple existing mechanisms and criterias in the game, and intend them for a different kind of item… i.e.

  • Intend MW for only some item type or portion
  • Intend Imprinting for another
  • Intend Tempering for another

Or even better (and probably the right thing to do) just add an optional “hinting” qualifier

  • Forgable (or extra forging potential) => Contains extra MW capacity or can roll higher Imprinted value
  • Bountiful => Can mean extra value from additional affixes in the item (be it via Socket or Temper)

But the important thing is:

  • Do not succumb to the temptation to add everything to all, keep it as an exclusive choice

The MERE FACT that every single item in the game is all 3 => Temperable, Imprintable and can be MW-ed meaning the ENTIRE EFFORT of the player is transferred to gambling and labor sessions… If you make one or the other => will reduce the amount of “impact” that gambling and imprinting, and tempering, e.t.c. stuff like that can do and keeps the game “clean” to search for more

In addition => that kind of distinction AND exclusion of “labor for perfection” will make things a lot more interesting (than adding a new unique each season or two)… The amount of time and effort “wasted” to add 3 new items in the game, can be used to make the rest 99.999999% of loot potentially and situationally useful

That’s it… No need to “reinvent the wheel”, but if people start nagging or complaining about itemization being not inspiring remember the reasons:

  • MW (along with Tempering, Imprinting, e.t.c.) is mandatory/obligatory for all items (or most of all)
  • There is no point in diving too deep into rarity, fix the rest of items by having an individual criteria based on item type they belong to that makes them work

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Ofcourse, you’re welcomed to give some feedback of your own :slight_smile:

4 Likes
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Will never happen. Blizzard tried to fix itemization once. I doubt they will be allowed to do it again. Someone will have to approve it and they will say “Why would it work this time? You even copied the leading product and now you want to throw it all away?”.

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I think the OP’s idea won’t happen, simply because it seems like it would be way more work than this team wants to do. Maybe for the next expansion … maybe. I’m not going to hold my breath.

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I cant see them moving away from D3 itemization but I wish they would.

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The point of the topic is not to ask for another rework

The main point of this topic is that IN CASE of there be a demand or efforts => being able to recognize and avoid the myths, i.e. caught in wrong assumptions (and instead do something that doesn’t require that much of a big effort but will bring a lot more in return)

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Assuming there’s a third expansion, that would be when they would make a huge change like this. I get the feeling most of the next expansion coming out in 2026 is already well planned out at this point in time, just a matter of coding it all.

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7

The solution is not for Blizzard to adapt to your whims but for you to adapt to the realities of itemization. Lots of people are not having any problems with gear and are doing quite well playing the game. Maybe you should learn from them?

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I agree, BUT, just decoupling Imprinting, Tempering, and MW from one another and just adding a simple quantifier (5%-25% extra juice from X, Y, Z) will do most of the work

Uniques can stay the same, Blue, White items no need to do anything, just make MW, Tempering and Imprinting exclusive from one-another and add a potential for each to potentially hit an “extra oomph” :slight_smile:

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The problem they were trying to solve with masterworking and tempering is that there was no item progression.

The game started off being a “journey to 100” and the item progression was fairly simple. The higher your level the higher iLevel could drop.

But people screamed they wanted to be in the “end game” in 30 seconds and now you hit 60 in a few hours and they start dropping 800 gear. The only lever they have is drop rates (which is why they are awful). There’s no mechanism for finding better and better gear. In comes tempering and masterworking with the idea that you will find your “forever item” (their term) and then improve it to get item progression.

The problem here is once you start down the road with your “forever item” it sucks starting all over again when you find a better starting item.

This system can work there just needs to be a way to make the items actual “forever” items. Which is to say these items can be improved through some manor till they become BIS without starting over with a new item.

2 Likes
10

By decoupling these mechanics though, you get into what items exactly would each of these systems affect?

Let’s just go to the obvious, if you can’t imprint an item with an aspect it’s all but useless for your build, unless it’s a Unique of course. So that’s already a staple that needs to be available to every item you come across, rares and other legendaries.

So now you get into, ok where do we put Tempering and Masterworking? Which items would these affect? I get that you want to decouple them, but now you’re getting into seclusion of items, and I feel the majority would pick the ones they could imprint over the ones they couldn’t. Making the items you could Temper or Masterwork all but useless, depending on the items themselves, again Uniques being the exception.

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Lazyloaf has described (IMO accurately) this as the problem of “incomplete items.”

I’ll just say that in that context, Tempering & MW were lazy kludges, rather than fixing the issue. I think that notions of fixing Tempering & MW amount to tinkering at the edges, especially if all that’s done is “de-coupling” them from each other.

Finally, FWIW – & I’m not sure how to fully articulate this, but I know what I think – I think the idea of “forever items” in Diablo needs to die in the same acid bath as The Pit.

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I guess you’re right but think there might be a tight spot to just “fit” stuff in there

  • Out of the 3 it is MW that GA works best in combination with (I’d imagine)

Just need to think of a solid quantifier mechanism for the other two :thinking:

Yeah, I’m not a fan of these either

For example GD has an item which allows you to equip 2 pistols, but it’s a very low armor Rags so you’re now “stuck” into having zero to no armor for the rest of the game so you can carry 2 :slight_smile:

I’m not saying that the item is not “creative” engouh, I just think that main-stat like Armor shouldn’t suffer so much from creativity, but more importantly (as mentioned in @OP post) I don’t think “Rarity” carries itemization, it’s quite a bit overrated concept IMO

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Agreed, but if you got an Ancestral Legendary item, and you decided to MW it, and now it can’t be imprinted, you’d never use it. Aspects are what make our builds work at the moment.

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I don’t have an issue with master working. Tempering is the system that I think is hot garbage in desperate need of a full revamp.

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I mean if we want to fix Tempering for good, just need to add a Temper that has 5-6 rolls that are for each skill as individual

I don’t like MW cause it totally kills the moment of finding a surprise drop (well other than having a dedicated “Obducite lane” to run specifically for that purpose)

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Sadly it would be tough to decouple the systems as they are now. I think they could alter Tempering if anything else, but MW, just the 5% upgrades themselves (not the extra bonuses every 4 levels) are extremely helpful in the long run. They often allow you to push into the next difficulty tier because of it. Giving you the much needed Resists, Armor, Main Stat, damage, etc. that you need to take on these higher difficulties.

So while your system seems intriguing on paper, I don’t think it’d be as simple as you would otherwise claim it to be. Now allowing a little more control might be feasible to an extent. However I look at the other games crafting systems and it’s just as bad if not worse than what we have in D4.

At least with MW you are guaranteed to upgrade your item, regardless of what the bonuses are. Getting that triple crit can help push your build further of course, hence the random aspect to it. They can’t just hand you power at will, the game needs friction.

Tempering on the other hand is a ‘chance’ to make your item better, or to make it useless to your build. With MW you don’t have this problem, your item is still useful, just not optimized. Tempering is essentially finding your item on the ground, but it can only roll these specific affixes in these slots. While you have more control over what gets put in there, it’s not a guarantee.

People don’t see it that way when they fail to get the affix they want after they’ve expended all of their attempts. I myself equate it to, well I just had 10 items drop, all of them are useless to my build. That is tempering in a nutshell. The item dropped 10 times (tempering reroll) and I can’t use it for the build I have.

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I’m not sure what you mean by this, but here’s my issue, & maybe we’re talking about the same thing? So, I pick a category; it’s got +Life, +Dodge, & +Armor. At levels prior to Torment, I don’t really care so much about +Armor or +Dodge; I want +Life. But then I go to Torment, my armor gets whacked, & suddenly I need more armor, but I can’t just Temper for +Armor; I have to choose a category, & then watch helplessly as I re-roll +Life or +Dodge until I run out of re-rolls.

That’s a crap system.

Conversely, under the same difficulty levels, I MW an item, & I get a bonus. So long as I have the Obducite, I can keep MWing that item to get a bonus. When I look at the item afterwards, I almost always smile.

Tempering, however, mostly makes me want to find the developer & throw things at them.

I’m not at all understanding this point, as I’ve never had anything like that happen. What do you mean?

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Have an individual temper for each skill so you don’t “brick” stuff

I mean sure, it can still happen but say you’ve got something like a Hydra mastery Temper and in it you have only options for Hydra upgrades

  • 9-15% chance to double-summon Hydras
  • 2-5% chance for Hydra on kill to spawn another
  • Hydra does [15-25]% damage
  • Hydra does [20-32]% more damage to burning targets
  • Hydras gain [9-15]% increased LH%

Something along those sorts, so that just by picking the manual itself will mean you get something (guaranteed) Hydra-related in return

When things slow down and trying to push a few extra Pits an item drops (GA or better unique of what you have, whatever) and you can’t equip it to see what kind of impact it has (you have to go to MW first)

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19

I will freely admit that discussions like this make my eyes glaze over. I’m not a math guy by any stretch, & when I play D4, all I want to do is blast demons. All of this stuff is exactly why I keep sarcastically mentioning the 0.0.0.0.8% power increase: I think players obsess over these tiny differences as if they’re actually important, & quite frankly I blame Blizzard’s bloated game design for making us feel that way.

I think itemization needs to be entirely overhauled. From the ground up, & across the board. I think that “smart loot” is terrible. I want a loot filter from the start of the game that lets me say “OK, items below X quality level will be auto-scrapped.” I want items that are set up so that I don’t have to wonder what +X% to Y skill actually means.

OK, thanx … I’m still confuzzled because I’ve never experienced such a thing. To me, I may not know precisely how much better it will be without MWing it, but I can still equip it & use it until I get back to the Blacksmith to MW it, at which point I’ll get an idea of how much better (or maybe not) it will function for me.

It’s quite possible I’m still not fully understanding your point.

That would be, I think, better overall. It would certainly take time to re-set the tempering interface for that, but it doesn’t sound an impossible task & would make tempering easier to deal with. I have doubts it will ever happen, though.

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I think this is worth dissecting because the problem they’d run into is that such an items in D4 would become mandatory for each different kind of fight. So the problem isn’t just about itemization, it’s about fight designs.

In D2, itemization was free to create dopamine because the fights were pretty much just spanks. But modern ARPGs and D4 fights are more like Ubers in D2. Which people made special sets and characters for (smite pally, etc). So the problem they’d run into here is that people would feel compelled to regear for every fight. And if they didn’t, then the affixes would be meaningless in the first place.

This is the conundrum for modern ARPG designers, even if they’re not aware of why they’re having such a problem with dopamine and items.

2 Likes